this post was submitted on 29 Mar 2026
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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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[–] morriscox@lemmy.world 1 points 14 minutes ago

A previous version of this article stated that the White House app was actively tracking users' GPS coordinates every 4.5 minutes via OneSignal's SDK. This characterisation, which circulated widely on X, including in posts that accumulated hundreds of thousands of views, has since been contested by independent technical analysis. Multiple developers who reviewed the decompiled code confirmed that while the GPS tracking constants exist within OneSignal's bundled SDK, the app does not call that capability. No location permission prompt is issued to users upon installation, and OneSignal's documentation states that location data is not collected unless a developer explicitly enables the feature. The GPS code is most likely residual from the SDK template rather than a deliberate implementation. This article has been updated to reflect that distinction.

This is at the bottom of the article.

[–] RIotingPacifist@lemmy.world 8 points 5 hours ago

But her emails!!!!

[–] Cantaloupe@lemmy.fedioasis.cc 40 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Who tf is out here downloading the White House app?

I just learned it existed

[–] flop_leash_973@lemmy.world 7 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 18 hours ago)

Is this the same app that also has a feature that allows you to inform on others to ICE?

[–] TwinTitans@lemmy.world 13 points 1 day ago

LOL. White House app. Just fuck right off with your propaganda 🤣🤣🤣🤣

[–] Tiger_Man_@szmer.info 58 points 1 day ago (4 children)

its gotta be hard to be a conspiracy theorist nowadays where every theory turns out to be true

[–] Smokeless7048@lemmy.world 20 points 1 day ago (4 children)

I wish any of the conspiracy theorists theories are the real theories.

They are all into pizzagate and flat earth, and not "huh, I bet the government's app is a peice of shit that's tracking me"

[–] HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 10 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

hey i'm a bigfoot truther. his name is larry and he's real into hugs

i mean that's it. we don't really have much beyond he sings like a moose that one time we let him use the shower. WHICH WAS A MISTAKE HE CLOGGED THE DAMN THING. but he sang like a moose.

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[–] echodot@feddit.uk 10 points 1 day ago (3 children)

Conspiracy theorists never actually believe in the actual conspiracies. No it's always the lamp posts broadcasting nanobots into your blood. And not that the phone that has tracking capabilities is tracking you, in fact no conspiracy theorist ever has ever been worried about their iPhone or billionaires sending plenty text emails to each other about to listen activities.

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[–] GalacticGrapefruit@lemmy.world 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

It's only paranoia when you're wrong.

[–] echodot@feddit.uk 7 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Is it paranoia though if they believe in a particular thing with no actual evidence and it just turns out that they're partially correct by chance?

Because there are plenty of conspiracies along the lines of "the government is monitoring everyone" but it's always been via nanobots in your blood or via psychic energies being emitted from 5G towers. It's never "the government to tracking me with this GPS enabled device that I voluntarily purchased with my own money, now excuse me I have to make a rambling geotagged Facebook post the Gray Aliens".

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[–] thisphuckinguy@lemmy.world 19 points 1 day ago

Why would anyone download this?

[–] nuko147@lemmy.world 70 points 1 day ago (3 children)

Thank god that they banned foreigner made Routers to their whole country for security reasons though.

[–] MML@sh.itjust.works 24 points 1 day ago

Banning routers today, Reuters tomorrow.

[–] sleepyplacebo@rblind.com 2 points 19 hours ago* (last edited 19 hours ago)

I have been saving up for a router and wanted to support a company that sells devices that are compatible with as much open source software as possible.

This really sucks. If I had known this was going to happen randomly I would have prioritised saving up faster and just not spent it on other things. I had no idea I needed to prioritise this.

But like I say frequently about the US. It is a very prohibitionist country. You never know when the next thing you do or use will be criminalized or prohibited. Then you will be at risk of being arrested and in some cases even sent to a literal for profit private prison ran by a place like CoreCivic. It is fucked up.

Even if I were to get a router from a foreign manufacturer now, it likely won't be legal for me to actually use it. The FCC could at the very least fine somebody depending on how this order will be enforced.

There is also possibly going to be a risk of it being seized at the border.

Who knows how this will even be enforced since the vast vast majority of consumer routers are not even made in the US. I don't even know of one truly made in the US. But a router from a foreign open source focused company will likely be considered even more of a "foreign manufacturer".

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[–] merdaverse@lemmy.zip 22 points 1 day ago

If you're so stupid that you install an app for Trump propaganda, you deserve to boot of the state on your neck.

[–] droopy4096@lemmy.ca 10 points 1 day ago

...the idea was to track POTUS47, as a sole user of the app, as he notoriously got lost...

[–] modus@lemmy.world 43 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Wtf is a White House app good for? Streamlining his mental diahrea into your hands?

[–] merdaverse@lemmy.zip 11 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Official propaganda delivered right to your push notifications:

[–] isVeryLoud@lemmy.ca 9 points 1 day ago

Wow. That's North Korea levels of propaganda.

[–] PolarPirate@lemmy.zip 18 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Scary thing is that this is EXTREMELY common....

[–] m3t00@lemmy.world 7 points 1 day ago

scary thing is most people have no idea. scroll cats 🤷

[–] thorhop@sopuli.xyz 1 points 16 hours ago

Cheesy electron wrapper does some tracking. News at 9.

[–] m4ylame0wecm@lemmy.zip 21 points 1 day ago (1 children)
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[–] Skankhunt420@sh.itjust.works 139 points 1 day ago (7 children)

Lol I remember watching that YouTube video about a north Korean phone that took screenshots every few minutes.

Freedom™

[–] BCsven@lemmy.ca 74 points 1 day ago (1 children)
[–] lagoon8622@sh.itjust.works 26 points 1 day ago (2 children)

The key difference is, instead of your data winding up in an oppressive, kleptocratic surveillance state, it goes to the oppressive, kleptocratic adtech industry (dw, your data is also still sent to the oppressive, kleptocratic surveillance state,)

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[–] magnetosphere@fedia.io 191 points 1 day ago (1 children)

This is the kind of behavior I’d expect from this administration.

[–] Not_mikey@lemmy.dbzer0.com 34 points 1 day ago (1 children)

The bar is so low and they still manage to limbo under it

[–] GraniteM@lemmy.world 20 points 1 day ago

My favorite formulation is:

The bar was so low it was practically a tripping hazard in Hell, yet here you are, limbo dancing with the devil.

[–] osanna@lemmy.vg 95 points 1 day ago (13 children)

Who the actual fuck would install an app from lying scum dumpy? Holy shit.

[–] xelar@lemmy.ml 27 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Those who lost money on Trump coin.

[–] Vupware@lemmy.zip 13 points 1 day ago (1 children)

HAHAHAHAHA

With all material pain this man has inflicted, I totally forgot about his crypto scam.

What the fuck, he’s so cartoonishly evil.

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[–] auntieclokwise@lemmy.world 56 points 1 day ago (4 children)

If you're stupid enough to install that on your phone, you deserve whatever it is that you get. I'm surprised it doesn't periodically send your browsing history to the fuhrer for inspection. Wouldn't want those sheep getting the wrong thoughts.

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[–] skisnow@lemmy.ca 23 points 1 day ago (1 children)

One thing I don't think has got enough attention is the fact that it does a fetch from Truth Social as well, which means Trump personally gets at least some indirect data on the app's users on a server that isn't even slightly controlled or contracted by the government.

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[–] pirate2377@lemmy.zip 4 points 1 day ago
[–] rmuk@feddit.uk 14 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Altogether now, and-a-one, and-a-two, and-a-one-two-three...

BUT HER EMAILS

[–] moseschrute@lemmy.world 8 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

BUT SLEEPY JOE WANTED FREE TRANSGENDER FOR IMMIGRANT DRAG QUEENS IN COMMUNIST SCOOLS

[–] obinice@lemmy.world 65 points 1 day ago (3 children)

The funny thing is, THIS seems to be the part the media is rolling with, but if you read the full details about what it can do and how poorly it's made, tracking your location is only one thing to worry about (though it's a big one to be fair).

E.g The potential for running arbitrary malicious code if one random dude on the internet (who is unrelated to the US government) has his GitHub account compromised? Daaaaaaawg

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[–] green_goglin@thelemmy.club 15 points 1 day ago (1 children)
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