Digital Footprints Put Mobile Device Users In Jeopardy

Whenever you use your mobile phone or any other device hooked to the internet, you establish digital footprints. That footprint pinpoints precisely where you are. Now, imagine you are a member of a special operations force (SOF) on a clandestine mission, and you use a mobile communications device to keep connected in a command-and-control network. An enemy with the right technology could identify your transmission signal and locate you with scary precision. 

Tracking Digital Footprints Is Already Available

Adversaries do not have to steal the technology. The capability to use electronic surveillance equipment to identify soldiers’ digital footprints in the field is available today in the commercial market. The militarized version is far more sophisticated but essentially uses the same technology as Apple’s Find My Phone application. To understand the utility of such a capability, let me recount a personal experience that makes the point. On a return trip from Washington, DC, my wife and I stopped at a McDonald’s only to find it closed due to COVID. My wife used her iPhone to find the nearest restaurant. It was about 20 miles down Hwy 81. We drove there, and as we were getting out of the car, my wife said: “Where’s my phone?” We searched the car to no avail. Using my phone, I employed the Find My Phone feature. Sure enough, a blinking iPhone avatar showed her device on a satellite image. We returned the 20 miles to the highway cloverleaf interchange, where the satellite photo showed the iPhone’s precise location on the side of the road. The mobile phone was inadvertently put on the top of the car and fell off when we entered the on ramp. If it can work for someone using Find My Phone, it can certainly work for an enemy looking for a US soldier using a similar mobile device.

According to The Washington Times, Admiral Frank M. Bradley, commander of the United States Special Operations Command, in a May 19 speech made the point:

“We now fight in a space of pervasive surveillance, a ubiquitous information environment driven by technical surveillance. Exquisite information is no longer the guarded property of governments or of the state. It is increasingly crowdsourced, exploitable, and available to anyone with the will to look… We accept this passive surveillance as background in today’s modern societies.”

Admiral Bradly explained that if you take that same commercially available technology designed to create tailored pop-up advertisements using open-source data and apply it to the battlefield with a contested battle space: “Suddenly that digital footprint you’ve created doesn’t generate a targeted ad. It generates a grid coordinate for a precision munition.” Because of the clandestine nature of US special operations’ missions, minimizing deployed forces’ digital footprints is more critical. 

Though Admiral Bradley’s observations are recent, the jeopardy we place our military fighting forces in is not. In a January 2025 Defensescoop.com report, the author made clear, “Advanced adversaries are acquiring intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities and other tools that will make it easier to locate American troops.” The article also points out that SOF forces recognize the jeopardy they face and are adopting a “security through obscurity” approach to keep special operations ground forces safe from prying cyber eyes. Christopher Maier, assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict, explained that the Department of War has “seen some good success in our internal departmental experimentation that if we really put a lot of emphasis on it, we can achieve degrees of obscurity that I think we’re going to need…” In other words, there is a concerted effort by the War Department to address the SOF units’ digital footprint by obscuring or masking locations or by minimizing the use of digital communications equipment.

The Government Accountability Office Made the Problem Larger

In October 2025, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report that took a broader perspective on the digital footprint conundrum. “Massive amounts of traceable data about military personnel and operations now exist due to the digital revolution,” the document explained. “When aggregated, these ‘digital footprints’ can threaten military personnel and their families, operations, and ultimately national security.” It’s not just soldiers in a combat zone who are in jeopardy; literally everyone who uses a mobile device regularly is, too. “Malicious actors can use aggregated data to create a comprehensive profile to expose personal details of military personnel, such as their identity, including rank and unit affiliations, patterns of behavior, and family details,” the GAO reported.

People aren’t going to stop using mobile devices to communicate with friends, colleagues, and family. The requirement for deployed SOF units, as well as other combat personnel, to be in constant communications for command and control is not going away, either. The challenge is to be aware that radio waves are everywhere and forever. When anyone uses their mobile device, those radio waves are a big arrow pointing to where they are and, in many cases, what they are doing. Remember there is “security through obscurity.” Try to make your digital footprint as small as possible.

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The views expressed are those of the author and not of any other affiliate.