On 30 August 2026, the Neue Zürcher Zeitung reported on our study of agentic AI and mobility data (article by Gioia da Silva, in German).
Data brokers sell location data from millions of smartphones and remove names beforehand. Our study shows why that is not enough. In an experiment with simulated location data, AI agents derived home and work addresses from the traces, matched them with public sources and assigned names, automatically and at a cost of minutes and a few dollars per person. Anyone who releases or buys such data can no longer take its anonymity for granted.
«We did not build a tool to monitor people. But we show how little effort it takes to create one. That is security research in the classic sense: we make a gap visible.» Oscar Thees in the NZZ
- Paper: Agentic AI-Powered Re-identification, PSD 2026
Further coverage
- NZZ, 12 September 2026: commentary by Gioia da Silva, «KI vereinfacht Massenüberwachung massiv. Datenbroker müssen aufhören, Standortdaten zu verkaufen» (in German)
- Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung, 4 September 2026: reprint of the NZZ article (in German)
- General-Anzeiger (Ostfriesland), 4 September 2026: reprint of the NZZ article (in German)
- NZZ Akzent podcast, 6 October 2026: episode on the study
Cover illustration: Hans-Jörg Walter / NZZaS.