US military disables trackers amid Mideast targets

The US military has disabled advertising trackers on a range of phones and computers used by its personnel, amid concerns that commercially available location data could be used to track and target American forces in the Middle East, British news agency Reuters said in an exclusive report.

The move was disclosed in letters released on Friday by US Senator Ron Wyden and in statements provided by military officials to Reuters.

The US Air Force told Wyden it disabled the advertising identifiers on computers and mobile phones two months ago. US Special Operations Command said it had “recently” disabled the identifiers on its Windows devices.