Private companies that buy and distribute real-time phone location data from major US phone carriers have been caught rampantly reselling that data to companies and people they aren’t supposed to, including private bounty hunters.
In a Motherboard investigate report, the reporter was able to buy someone’s real-time location for $300. A bounty hunter interviewed claims that a barely-secret black market works via multiple layers of reseller companies and ultimately allows almost anyone to purchase this data.
There is little regulation for this data in the US.