Want to see something crazy? Open this link on your phone with WiFi turned off.
US telecommunications companies grant third-party services like Danal and Payfone direct access to sensitive customer data—including home addresses, phone numbers, and real-time cell tower location data—through enterprise APIs ostensibly designed for fraud detection. These services can look up this information using only a mobile phone's IP address, with minimal consent requirements and likely inadequate oversight, enabling potential tracking or de-anonymization of nearly any American cell phone user without meaningful safeguards or warrant requirements. The article demonstrates working demos of these capabilities and notes that major carriers' opt-out mechanisms appear ineffective at preventing such access.