Huq GPS location data sharing

App analysis company AppCensus, alongside Vice's Motherboard, have discovered that Huq, a location data merchant that claims to collect and process over one billion mobility events every day, has been receiving GPS coordinates even when mobile users have explicitly opted-out of the collection of this data on individual Android apps.

While Huq appeared unaware of the vulnerability, the findings raise questions about the nature and effectiveness of Huq's customer/partner compliance checks, which it says it runs monthly.

Civil rights and privacy advocates suggest the problem reflects inadequate advertising and marketing industry data sharing practices and governance.