{"id":231578,"date":"2026-04-03T18:49:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-03T22:49:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/03\/powell-faces-scrutiny-over-use-of-location-data-collection-tool-without-internal-privacy-policies\/"},"modified":"2026-04-05T19:20:33","modified_gmt":"2026-04-05T23:20:33","slug":"powell-faces-scrutiny-over-use-of-location-data-collection-tool-without-internal-privacy-policies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/03\/powell-faces-scrutiny-over-use-of-location-data-collection-tool-without-internal-privacy-policies\/","title":{"rendered":"Powell faces scrutiny over use of location data collection tool without internal privacy policies"},"content":{"rendered":"

Powell faces scrutiny over use of location data collection tool without internal privacy policies<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.10tv.com\/article\/news\/local\/powell-dublin-scrutiny-use-location-data-collection-tool-privacy-concerns\/530-d1e3e288-3bc6-47a3-b623-b6a10d112672<\/a><\/p>\n

Publish Date: 2026-04-03 18:49:00<\/a><\/p>\n

Source Domain: www.10tv.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Powell’s use of Placer.ai to track phone data raises privacy concerns, as the city lacks internal policies regarding data usage and defers to the vendor’s terms.<\/p>\n

POWELL, Ohio \u2014 When you drive into the City of Powell, you may not notice anything unusual. But your cell phone does \u2014 and so does the city.<\/p>\n

Powell has contracted with a data analytics company called Placer.ai to harvest location data collected from apps on your phone. You likely never knew it was happening.<\/p>\n

“I did not know that. It\u2019s kind of scary,\u201d said 19-year-old Powell shopper Grace Hammett.<\/p>\n

Placer.ai doesn’t need your direct consent \u2014 because you have already given it. When you install and grant permissions to apps like TikTok, Facebook, Snapchat, Amazon, eBay or Shopify, you agree to let those apps collect and share your location data. That data is then sold to brokers and, eventually, to platforms like Placer.ai.<\/p>\n

Before Placer.ai sees the data, the original app or broker is supposed to strip direct identifiers like your name and phone number.<\/p>\n

Sean Hughes, who oversees the program for Powell, says the city uses these digital breadcrumbs to better understand who is visiting and where they spend their time.<\/p>\n

“I can’t tell who you are in any possible way \u2014 it’s totally scrubbed information,” Hughes said.<\/p>\n

But how scrubbed is it? The data can reveal demographic information including gender, age, ZIP code, median household income, education levels and movement patterns, such as where someone walked or parked. The city says it will not know your home address.<\/p>\n

“We can show a general area \u2014 we don’t show a specific pinpoint,”…<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Powell faces scrutiny over use of location data collection tool without internal privacy policies https:\/\/www.10tv.com\/article\/news\/local\/powell-dublin-scrutiny-use-location-data-collection-tool-privacy-concerns\/530-d1e3e288-3bc6-47a3-b623-b6a10d112672…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":231579,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/media.tegna-media.com\/assets\/WBNS\/images\/a14c3004-6302-4b6e-a851-a74fe074a7fd\/20260403T223941\/a14c3004-6302-4b6e-a851-a74fe074a7fd_1140x641.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-231578","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-privacy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231578"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=231578"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231578\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":231580,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231578\/revisions\/231580"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/231579"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=231578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=231578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=231578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}