SEC拟采购AI Agent，监测手机位置、社交媒体与信用报告抬头数据

Babel Street 执行副总裁、前 CIA 反恐中心（CTC）高级目标定位官员 Patrick Butler。Butler 此前曾担任 NEK Advanced Securities Group 的首席科学家，并创办并担任链接分析公司 Dunami / PATHAR 的 CEO；该公司于 2020 年 6 月被 Babel Street 收购。图片来源：Babel Street。

根据近日公开的软件订阅续约文件，负责防范市场操纵的美国联邦机构正在采购由人工智能驱动的 Agent，用于监测手机位置、社交媒体帖子和信用报告抬头数据。

这项拟议合同续约，距离 Babel Street 向美国财政部制裁执法部门——外国资产控制办公室（OFAC）——出售类似手机位置追踪数据集约五年。当时，本文作者通过《信息自由法》请求披露了这笔交易。OFAC 于上周成为特朗普第二届政府公开重新利用监控能力的核心组成部分：这些能力最初获准用于打击基地组织，如今被用于打压美国国内及海外的左翼政治运动。

美国财政部长、前 Soros Fund Management 首席投资官 Scott Bessent 于 7 月 16 日表示：“通过我们的外国资产控制办公室、金融犯罪执法网络以及 [IRS Criminal Investigation]，我们已花费数十年时间，打造出全球最先进的金融反恐能力。”Bessent 补充称：“现在，我们正在调动此前用于打击海外恐怖分子的部分相同工具，以应对这一在国内出现的新威胁。”

周三发布至政府采购管理网站 SAM.gov 的软件订阅续约高层摘要称：“[美国证券交易委员会]需要一套基于云的软件解决方案，以提供实时数据聚合、分析和风险情报能力，支持其保护投资者、维护公平、有序和高效市场，以及促进资本形成的使命。”报价截止日期为 2026 年 8 月 5 日。拟议续约服务的开始日期为 8 月 14 日，正好在 Babel Street 与 SEC 之间一份为期五年、价值 140 万美元的合同结束后的次日；该合同始于 2021 年 8 月 9 日。

总部位于弗吉尼亚州雷斯顿的数据经纪商 Babel Street 为续约产品许可证附上的一份（部分删节）价目表，明确提及了该公司最具争议的产品：手机位置追踪平台 Locate X。该平台历来通过与应用开发者的私下交易，收集全球不知情普通民众个人手机的精确 GPS 位置。

负责监管 Locate X 的主要高管之一，是前 CIA 反恐中心（CTC）高级目标定位官员 Patrick Butler。他后来创办并担任获得 In-Q-Tel 支持的链接分析公司 PATHAR/Dunami 的 CEO。Babel Street 于 2020 年 6 月收购该公司后，Butler 晋升为 Babel 的执行副总裁。

（Babel Street 与前 CIA 高级管理人员之间的关系十分密切：前 CIA 首席运营官 Maura Burns 去年从该情报机构退休后，也加入了 Babel 的顾问委员会；前 CIA 首席数据科学家 Barbara N. Stevens 也于 2024 年 2 月被宣布担任 Babel 顾问；而 CIA 黑客部门的一名前首席运营官 Dare King则在约 2018 至 2019 年期间担任 Babel 的执行副总裁。）

SEC 拟续约的每个年度软件许可包——包括一个初始基础年度和九个可选年度——均包含两份 Babel Street“Locate X Premium”数据包许可证，部件编号为 TPD-LXP-001；十份“Babel Street Insights Platform”许可证；一份“US Credit Header and US Criminal Records Search”许可证；以及对“Identity API”进行 12,000 次调用的权限。

2026 年 7 月 22 日发布于政府采购管理网站 SAM.gov 的截图，展示美国证券交易委员会拟于 8 月 14 日续约的 Babel Street 许可证集合。

Babel Street 价目表

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截至 2026 年 7 月 22 日软件续约征集文件，Babel Street 面向美国证券交易委员会的软件许可证（部分删节）价目表。

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周三软件续约征集文件中的另一份附件，概述了 Babel Street 如何扩展其监控产品以利用人工智能 Agent。SEC 续约 Babel Street 许可证所列的四项“显著特征”之一为“Agentic AI-Driven Workflows（由 Agent 驱动的 AI 工作流）”。文件称，该能力包括可“独立开展复杂、多步骤威胁调查，发现供应链漏洞，并执行数字遥测”的 AI Agent。文件还声称，Babel 的 AI Agent 能够“绕过通用消费级 AI 模型中的安全过滤器，[从而]使分析师能够明确查询和总结恶意材料、极端主义通信内容及原始数字痕迹。”

同一文件称，Babel Street 专门提供“目前正在 SEC 使用的国防领域威胁搜寻”能力。

附于 7 月 22 日美国证券交易委员会与总部位于雷斯顿的数据经纪商 Babel Street 许可证软件续约征集文件的“品牌名称或同等产品（BNoE）模板”文件节选。

品牌名称或同等产品（BNoE）模板

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美国证券交易委员会拟续约其与总部位于雷斯顿的数据经纪商 Babel Street 之间的软件许可证所使用的“品牌名称或同等产品（BNoE）模板”；该文件将 AI Agent 描述为一项核心功能。

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一篇发表于 2024 年 8 月、并获 POLITICO 报道的研究论文，曾对 SEC 调查人员可能通过手机位置追踪数据而遭到行踪监控、其调查行动被揭露表示担忧。但如今看来，这些调查人员自己也正在利用同样的数据。

美国证券交易委员会负责此次软件续约的主要联系人 Paul LaFranchise 未立即回应置评请求。

Babel Street executive vice president and former CIA Counterterrorism Center (CTC) senior targeting officer Patrick Butler. Butler was previously the chief scientist of NEK Advanced Securities Group and the founder and CEO of the link analysis company Dunami / PATHAR, which was acquired by Babel Street in June 2020. Credit: Babel Street.

The American federal agency charged with preventing market manipulation is in the process of acquiring artificial intelligence-powered agents for monitoring cellphone locations, social media posts, and credit header data, according to newly public software subscription renewal documents.

The proposed contract renewal comes roughly five years after Babel Street’s similar sale of cellphone location-tracking datasets to the sanctions enforcement arm of the U.S. Treasury, the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), as uncovered by this author through a Freedom of Information request. OFAC last week became a central component of the second Trump administration’s overt repurposing of surveillance capabilities initially granted for combating al Qaeda towards crushing left-wing political movements both at home and abroad.

“Through our Office of Foreign Assets Control, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, and [IRS Criminal Investigation], we have spent decades developing the world’s most sophisticated financial counterterrorism capabilities,” stated U.S. treasury secretary and former Soros Fund Management chief investment officer Scott Bessent on July 16. “And now we are mobilizing some of the same tools that we have deployed against terrorists abroad to confront this emerging threat here at home,” added Bessent.

“The [U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission] requires a cloud-based software solution that provides real-time data aggregation, analytics, and risk intelligence capabilities in support of its mission to protect investors, maintain fair, orderly, and efficient markets, and facilitate capital formation,” stated a high-level summary of a software subscription renewal published to the award management site SAM.gov on Wednesday, with offers due by August 5, 2026. The proposed start date of the renewed access is August 14, one day after the end of a $1.4 million, five-year contract between Babel Street and the SEC which began on August 9, 2021.

An attached (partly redacted) price list for the renewing product licenses from the Reston-based data broker Babel Street contains explicit references to the company’s most controversial product: the cellphone location-tracking platform Locate X, which has historically gathered precise GPS locations of the personal cellphones of unsuspecting civilians around the world through backroom deals with application developers.

One of the lead executives overseeing Locate X has been the former CIA Counterterrorism Center (CTC) senior targeting officer Patrick Butler, who subsequently became the founder and CEO of the In-Q-Tel-backed link-analysis company PATHAR/Dunami, which was acquired by Babel Street in June 2020, leading Butler to rise to an executive vice president at Babel.

(Relationships between Babel Street and former high-level CIA executives are plentiful: the former CIA chief operating officer Maura Burns also joined the advisory board of Babel after retiring from the spy agency last year; former CIA chief data scientist Barbara N. Stevens was also announced as an advisor to Babel in February 2024, and a former chief operating officer for the CIA’s hacking arm, Dare King, was an executive vice president at Babel circa 2018 to 2019.)

Each of the yearly software license packages up for renewal with the SEC — an initial base year and nine optional years — includes two licenses to Babel Street’s “Locate X Premium” data package, with part number TPD-LXP-001, ten licenses for “Babel Street Insights Platform,” one license for “US Credit Header and US Criminal Records Search,” and the rights to conduct 12,000 calls to the “Identity API.”

A screenshot of the collection of Babel Street licenses up for renewal on August 14 with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, as published on the award management site SAM.gov on July 22.

Babel Street Price List

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The (partly redacted) price list for Babel Street's software licenses with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, as of a July 22, 2026 software renewal solicitation.

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Yet another attachment to Wednesday’s software renewal solicitation provides an overview of Babel Street’s extension of its surveillance products to leverage artificial intelligence agents. One of the four listed “salient characteristics” for the SEC’s renewal of its Babel Street licenses was listed as “Agentic AI-Driven Workflows,” which was said to include AI agents which “can independently conduct complex, multi-step threat investigations, discover supply chain vulnerabilities, and perform digital telemetry.” Babel’s AI agents were further claimed to have the ability “to bypass the safety filters found on general-purpose consumer AI models, [which] lets analysts explicitly query and summarize malicious material, extremist communications, and raw digital exhaust.”

According to the same document, Babel Street specializes in “defense-sector threat hunting which is currently being used at the SEC.”

A section of the “Brand Name of Equal (BNoE) Template” document attached to the July 22 software renewal solicitation for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s licenses with the Reston-based data broker Babel Street.

Brand Name or Equal (BNoE) Template

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The "Brand Name or Equal (BNoE) Template" for the U.S. Security and Exchange Commission's proposed renewal of its software licenses with the Reston-based data brokerage Babel Street, describing AI agents as a central feature.

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A research paper published in August 2024, which received press coverage from POLITICO, expressed concerns that SEC investigators could have their movements surveilled and investigations unmasked through cellphone location-tracking data. But now it seems that the investigators are themselves leveraging the same data.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s primary point of contact for the software renewal, Paul LaFranchise, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.