LocationSmart, originally called TechnoCom Location Platform, is a location-as-a-service (LaaS) company based in

Carlsbad, California Carlsbad is a beach city in the North County area of San Diego County, California, United States. The city is north of downtown San Diego and south of downtown Los Angeles. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population of ...

, that provides location APIs to enterprises and operates a secure, cloud-based and privacy-protected platform. In February 2015, it acquired a competitor, Locaid. LocationSmart provides near real-time location data for devices including smartphones, feature phones, tablets, M2M, IoT and other connected devices on Tier 1 and Tier 2 wireless networks in the U.S. and Canada. This includes

AT&T AT&T Inc., an abbreviation for its predecessor's former name, the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, is an American multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered at Whitacre Tower in Downtown Dallas, Texas. It is the w ...

Verizon Wireless Verizon is an American wireless network operator that previously operated as a separate division of Verizon Communications under the name Verizon Wireless. In a 2019 reorganization, Verizon moved the wireless products and services into the div ...

T-Mobile US T-Mobile US, Inc. is an American wireless network operator headquartered in Bellevue, Washington. Its majority shareholder and namesake is the German telecommunications company Deutsche Telekom. T-Mobile is the second largest wireless carrie ...

Sprint Corporation Sprint Corporation was an American telecommunications company. Before being acquired by T-Mobile US on April 1, 2020, it was the fourth-largest mobile network operator in the United States, serving 54.3 million customers as of June 30, 2019. Th ...

MetroPCS Metro by T-Mobile, formerly known as MetroPCS, and simply known as Metro, is an American prepaid mobile phone, prepaid Wireless, wireless service provider and brand owned by T-Mobile US. It previously operated the fifth largest mobile telecommun ...

, U.S. Cellular,

Rogers Communications Rogers Communications Inc. is a Canadian communications and media company operating primarily in the fields of wireless communications, cable television, telephony and Internet, with significant additional telecommunications and mass media ass ...

Bell Canada Bell Canada (commonly referred to as Bell) is a Canadian telecommunications company headquartered at 1 Carrefour Alexander-Graham-Bell in the borough of Verdun, Quebec, in Canada. It is an ILEC (incumbent local exchange carrier) in the province ...

and

Telus Telus may refer to: * Telus Corporation, a Canadian publicly traded holding company ** Telus Communications, a telecommunications company ** Telus Digital, a technology company ** Telus Health, a health technology provider ** Telus Mobility T ...

History

Founded in 1995, TechnoCom Corporation was headquartered in

Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

and called one of the area's fastest growing companies in 2003 by

Deloitte & Touche Deloitte is a Multinational corporation, multinational professional services network based in London, United Kingdom. It is the largest professional services network in the world by revenue and number of employees, and is one of the Big Four a ...

. In 2012, the TechnoCom Location Platform was rebranded as LocationSmart. On May 17, 2018, media outlets reported that the LocationSmart website allowed anyone to obtain the realtime location of any cell phone using any of the major U.S. wireless carriers (including AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, and Sprint), as well as some Canadian carriers, to within a few hundred yards, given only the phone number. Approximately 200 million customers may have been exposed. No consent was required, and there was no ability to opt-out. In addition, the data could be requested by anyone anonymously, with no

authentication Authentication (from ''authentikos'', "real, genuine", from αὐθέντης ''authentes'', "author") is the act of proving an Logical assertion, assertion, such as the Digital identity, identity of a computer system user. In contrast with iden ...

authorization Authorization or authorisation (see American and British English spelling differences#-ise, -ize (-isation, -ization), spelling differences), in information security, computer security and identity management, IAM (Identity and Access Managemen ...

, or payment required. Security researcher Robert Xiao, who discovered the vulnerability, stated that the LocationSmart

API An application programming interface (API) is a connection between computers or between computer programs. It is a type of software interface, offering a service to other pieces of software. A document or standard that describes how to build ...

failed to implement basic checks and that the vulnerability could have been found by anyone with little effort. In response, LocationSmart took the vulnerable service offline and claimed the company "takes privacy seriously".

Clients

LocationSmart uses a variety of location methods that include cellular network location, Wi-Fi location, IP address location, landline location, hybrid location via a software development kit (SDK), browser location and global site identification (GSID) location. LocationSmart provides location services for enterprises and Fortune 500 companies. LocationSmart is also used by US states to offer online gaming within the state borders. LocationSmart is a member of CTIA, the Transportation Intermediaries Association (TIA), and the

International Association of Privacy Professionals The IAPP is a nonprofit, non-advocacy membership association founded in 2000. It provides a forum for privacy professionals to share best practices, track trends, advance privacy management issues, standardize the designations for privacy profess ...

(IAPP).

References

{{Reflist

External links

www.locationsmart.com
Companies based in San Diego County, California Companies based in Carlsbad, California Internet geolocation Location-based software Mobile technology companies Wireless locating

History

Clients

See also

References

External links