Data company sued by US government amid fears of sensitive location tracking

The lawsuit against data broker Kochava seeks to halt the sale of geolocation data from hundreds of millions of devices

The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) on Monday sued Idaho-based data broker Kochava for selling geolocation data from hundreds of millions of mobile devices that could be used to track consumers.

The FTC said consumer data could be used to trace people's movements to and from sensitive locations including reproductive health clinics, places of worship, homeless and domestic violence shelters, and addiction recovery facilities".