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Israeli Spy Tech Firm Tracked Mobile Users Around the World, Investigation Suggests
Investigation claims Rayzone used arcane cell network point to ‘track the locations of mobile phones across the world’; network vulnerability may have been exploited to track down UAE Princess Sheikha Latifa in attempted 2018 escape ■ Rayzone denies report The private Israeli intelligence firm Rayzone Group exploited a loophole in a mobile phone network to enable their clients to track people around the world, a joint investigation by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism and The Guardian revealed on Wednesday. According to the investigation, Rayzone rented access to an arcane global messaging system in the Channel Islands that allowed them to “geolocate” mobile phone users across the world. The report also claims that this point in the Channel Islands was also used in efforts to locate Princess Sheikha Latifa al-Maktoum bint Mohammed Al Maktoum when she attempted to escape her father, Dubai’s ruler, in 2018.
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Spy companies using Channel Islands to track phones around the world
Private intelligence companies are using phone networks based in the Channel Islands to enable surveillance operations to be carried out against people around the world, including British and US citizens, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism can reveal following a joint reporting project with the Guardian. Leaked data, documents and interviews with industry insiders who have access to sensitive information suggest that systemic weaknesses in the global telecoms infrastructure, and a particular vulnerability in Jersey and Guernsey, are being exploited by corporate spy businesses. These businesses take advantage of some of the ways mobile phone networks across the world interact in order to access private information on targets, such as location information or, in more sophisticated applications, the content of calls and messages or other highly sensitive data.