US tech firm attempted to track Putin's movements via entourage's phones

Washington: US technology company PlanetRisk has allegedly attempted to track the movements of Russian President Vladimir Putin via monitoring the phones of his entourage, Wired magazine reported, citing a book by former US reporter at The Wall Street Journal, Byron Tau.

In 2016, the company reportedly developed the first version of the Locomotive software that allowed it to track mobile phones by using commercial data from UberMedia, a firm that targeted consumers with advertising, the magazine said in a report published on Tuesday.

After acquiring a data set on Russia, PlanetRisk realised they could track phones in Putin's entourage, including security staff, political aides, drivers, and others, as the phones "moved everywhere" that the Russian president did, the report said. However, the devices in question did not belong to Putin himself, the report also said.

The tracking software was later renamed VISR and was used by US intelligence and special services, the report added.