A 2020 investigation by the Wall Street Journal revealed for the first time that government agencies—such as the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE)—buy data from online advertising and smartphone apps for surveillance purposes. This involves data on billions of people, including their locations, movements, families, and behavior in many areas of life. The broken infrastructure of our brave new digital consumer world is turning into a system of mass surveillance. This systematic government abuse of purchased commercial data has since spread around the globe—mostly circumventing judicial oversight. The use of advertising-data-based surveillance has been documented for the US military and many other US government agencies, as well as for the police in El Salvador and Hungary’s domestic intelligence service. In June 2026, it became known that Austria’s Interior Ministry had purchased Webloc, a surveillance system from US provider Penlink that enables the tracking of half the population based on app and advertising data. The internationally active Vienna-based surveillance researcher Wolfie Christl has been investigating the global use of these technologies since 2020—in collaboration with investigative journalists and civil society organizations, and since 2025 at the renowned Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto. He offers insights into his research over the past several years. How do data from our smartphone apps end up with surveillance companies and government agencies? Which technologies and companies are involved? To what extent is all of this illegal in Europe under the GDPR? Why is Austria’s Interior Ministry completely lacking in transparency? And why is the use of commercial advertising data for government mass surveillance a serious infringement of fundamental rights that must be stopped urgently?
A Wall Street Journal investigation revealed for the first time in 2020 that government agencies—such as the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency ICE—buy data from online advertising and smartphone apps for surveillance purposes. This concerns data on billions of people—about their locations, movements, families, and behavior in many areas of life. The broken infrastructure of our brave new digital consumer world is transforming into a system of mass surveillance. This systematic governmental abuse of purchased commercial data has since spread around the globe—mostly bypassing judicial oversight. The use of advertising-data-based surveillance by the US military and many other US agencies has been documented, as has its use by the police in El Salvador and by the Hungarian domestic intelligence service. In June 2026, it became known that Austria’s Interior Ministry had purchased the Webloc surveillance system from US provider Penlink, which enables the tracking of half the population based on app and advertising data.
The internationally active Vienna-based surveillance researcher Wolfie Christl has been investigating the global use of these technologies since 2020—together with investigative journalists and civil society organizations, and since 2025 at the renowned Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto.
He offers insight into his research of recent years. How does data from our smartphone apps end up with surveillance companies and government agencies? Which technologies and companies play a role? To what extent is all of this illegal in Europe under the GDPR? Why is Austria’s Interior Ministry operating with complete lack of transparency? And why is the use of commercial advertising data for government mass surveillance a serious violation of fundamental rights that must be stopped urgently?
The first re:publica Vienna brought Europe’s most important festival for digital society, politics, technology, and culture to Austria for the first time. From October 2 to 3, 2026, the Brotfabrik cultural center became a venue for debates and keynotes with international speakers. The teams from OKTO and Moment Magazin recorded the events and have been presenting the videos since October 5 in the 18:00 and 23:10 time slots.
