this post was submitted on 29 Mar 2026
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White House App Found Tracking Users' Exact Location Every 4.5 Minutes via Third-Party Server (www.ibtimes.co.uk)
submitted 2 days ago by spaghettiwestern@sh.itjust.works to c/technology@lemmy.world
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The Trump administration's newly launched White House App is under scrutiny after a software developer claimed to have found embedded code that tracks users' precise GPS coordinates every 4.5 minutes and automatically syncs them to a third-party server. The claim, posted on 28 March 2026 by the X account @Thereallo1026, has drawn nearly 260,000 views and prompted questions about data collection practices in government-operated applications.

The post included what appeared to be decompiled source code from the app, revealing what the user described as OneSignal's 'full GPS pipeline compiled in.' According to the post, the code showed the app 'polling your location every 4.5 minutes, syncing your exact coordinates to a third-party server.' The White House has not publicly responded to the specific technical claims.

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[–] fonix232@fedia.io 18 points 1 day ago (1 children)

The Play Store has recently (I think about 3 years ago?) introduced delayed updates for things like download counts because they were battling faked statistics (e.g. the download counter could be manipulated by bot farms), so now downloads are accumulated and checked against users actually using the app and having it on their devices - which takes time to update so IIRC they now only update that counter every month. Hence the 0+ downloads.

[–] Pappabosley@lemmy.world 19 points 1 day ago (1 children)

So they're verifying downloads, but not reviews?

[–] fonix232@fedia.io 1 points 19 hours ago

Both are verified by an automated system.

which is why fake reviews slip through but fake downloads don't really (download count is easy to verify with device feedback, fake reviews require a proper system...)