U.S. military officials say they have disabled advertising trackers on a range of phones and computers, according to letters released on Friday (September 4, 2026) by U.S. Senator Ron Wyden and statements given to Reuters , a development that follows reports that commercially available location data had been used to target American forces in West Asia.
Wyden it disabled the advertising identifiers on computers and mobile phones two months ago. U.S. The Air Force and Special Operations Command declined further comment.
The Air Force told Mr. Special Operations Command said in a separate letter that it had “recently” disabled them on its Windows devices. The Army told Reuters that advertising IDs tied to mobile devices had been disabled since earlier this year. Similar letters from the Army and Navy to Wyden said they disabled advertising IDs on military devices but gave no indication of when the restrictions were imposed. The Army said in a statement that advertising IDs had been blocked on Windows computers “since before 2021” but that Android and Apple mobile devices had only had it disabled by default “since at least February 2026.”
Mr. Wyden and U.S. The letter included the updates from the various service branches on their efforts to disable advertising IDs on military devices. Mr. Mr.
Representative Pat Harrigan, a North Carolina Republican, sent a letter to the Pentagon on Friday (September 4, 2026) asking for an investigation into whether the military had properly countered the dangers of the location data trade.
Wyden said in a statement that it was clear that the military’s efforts “have not been effective at neutralizing this threat. Harrigan said that U.S. enemies “should not be able to pull out a credit card and buy information that helps them track American troops. The Pentagon said in an email it would respond to the lawmakers directly. Zach Edwards, co-founder of privacy ad tech company Decryptads, said that efforts to disable MAID on military-operated devices were “definitely a positive thing.”
