Overview
- The Landeskriminalamt Mecklenburg‑Vorpommern has acknowledged that it used commercially traded smartphone location data in criminal probes in the past and says it does not plan to use those datasets going forward, a confirmation published Tuesday.
- Mecklenburg‑Vorpommern’s data‑protection commissioner, Sebastian Schmidt, has launched a formal Prüfverfahren to investigate how and why the police obtained and processed the commercial location data.
- Responses from other German Landeskriminalämter were mixed: five agencies said they do not use such data, several said it might be legally possible without naming a legal basis, and nine refused to answer citing secrecy or police‑tactical reasons.
- Legal experts and multiple data‑protection authorities say the commercial sale and police use of precise app‑derived location profiles likely violate the GDPR and can let investigators bypass court‑ordered safeguards such as judge‑approved cell‑site queries.
- Journalists did not publish the exact apps or datasets used and prior international research shows ad‑tech brokers have sold fine‑grained location profiles to state actors like ICE and Hungarian police, which raises risks for vulnerable people and has prompted calls for clearer law or a ban.