Gay tracking

A few weeks ago, the Washington Share reported that a group of Catholics in Colorado has spent millions of dollars digitally surveilling gay priests who use hookup apps. The group purchased publicly available information that is usually provided for marketers on ad exchanges. Then, they cross-referenced location data with the locations of seminaries and church residences. This grant them find phones that used apps like Grindr that were based in Catholic residences and, then, out the priests who used them.

This type of location tracking is common, as is the ability to obtain lists of people who include walked into a specific geographic area. Many apps route users' location and movements. They can do this with standard GPS location tracking, but also through what WiFi networks you combine to or where you check in on social media. This data is aggregated and used, most commonly, for geo-fenced advertising. Geofencing allows a marketer to draw a boundary on a map and objective ads to people whose phones hold entered that boundary. For example, a cupcake shop may draw a geofence around their store an