WIRED: 'Feds ‘Pinged’ Sprint GPS Data 8 Million Times Over a Year'

Wired's Threat Level blog picks up the Sprint Nextel story with new information from the company about the significance of the "8 million" figure cited by its Electronic Surveillance Manager.

According to the company, law enforcement authorities used a Sprint Nextel web portal to initiate 8 million "pings" to cell phones, which allowed officials to track the owners' locations. The company says that does not mean 8 million individual customers were tracked, but they won't say how many were.

The manager also revealed the existence of a previously undisclosed web portal that Sprint provides law enforcement to conduct automated “pings” to track users. Through the website, authorized agents can type in a mobile phone number and obtain global positioning system (GPS) coordinates of the phone.

The revelations, uncovered by blogger and privacy activist Christopher Soghoian, have spawned questions about the number of Sprint customers who have been under surveillance, as well as the legal process agents followed to obtain such data.

But a Sprint Nextel spokesman said that Soghoian, who recorded the Sprint manager’s statements at the closed conference, misunderstood what the figure represents. The number of customers whose GPS data was provided to local, state and federal law enforcement agencies was much less than 8 million, as was the total number of individual requests for data.

The spokesman wouldn’t disclose how many of Sprint’s 48 million customers had their GPS data shared, or indicate the number of unique surveillance requests from law enforcement. But he said that a single surveillance order against a lone target could generate thousands of GPS “pings” to the cell phone, as the police track the subject’s movements over the course of days or weeks. That, Sprint claims, is the source of the 8 million figure: it’s the cumulative number of times Sprint cell phones covertly reported their location to law enforcement over the year.

The spokesman also said that law enforcement agents have to obtain a court order for the data, except in special emergency circumstances.

Despite the company's denial, in the audio posted on Christopher Soghoian's blog, Sprint Nextel's Electronic Surveillance Manager, Paul Taylor, refers very clearly to "8 million requests from law enforcement, just for GPS alone," and praises the company's web interface for making it possible to fulfill those requests.

Sprint Nextel letting law enforcement use its GPS to track millions of customers' locations

Do you feel safer yet?

"[M]y major concern is the volume of requests. We have a lot of things that are automated but that's just scratching the surface. One of the things, like with our GPS tool. We turned it on the web interface for law enforcement about one year ago last month, and we just passed 8 million requests. So there is no way on earth my team could have handled 8 million requests from law enforcement, just for GPS alone. So the tool has just really caught on fire with law enforcement. They also love that it is extremely inexpensive to operate and easy, so, just the sheer volume of requests they anticipate us automating other features, and I just don't know how we'll handle the millions and millions of requests that are going to come in.
-- Paul Taylor, Electronic Surveillance Manager, Sprint Nextel.

Sprint Nextel actually has someone with the title "Electronic Surveillance Manager." Think about that.

[h/t Emptywheel]