Alabama Waze user gets notification of Terms & Conditions. Then she reads the fine print: ‘I was not prepared’

Keeping data private is a tall task in the age of the smartphone, with nearly every app under the sun appearing to ask for its user's location, camera roll, and activity across other apps.

But folks get especially leery when foreign governments get involved in app data tracking. Now, one woman is going viral for noticing the incorporation of another foreign entity in a perhaps unexpected app: Waze, a GPS navigation and live traffic app owned by Google.

‘I was right about the surveillance state'

Alabama congressional candidate Ashtyn Kennedy posted a video about Waze's terms and conditions to her personal profile, @ashtynkennedy4 on TikTok. Since posting, her video has accumulated more than 4.9 million views.

“Waze just updated its terms and services, and I've never read them before,” Kennedy said. “But something in my soul was just like, ‘Go look at those terms and services.'”

Kennedy said she was inspired by the “surveillance state” created by entities such as license plate reading company Flock. The ACLU reports that Flock “has made several significant changes to its contractual terms & conditions” that present privacy concerns.

When Kennedy did dive into Waze's small print, she was shocked by what she found.

“Well, mother[expletive] me,” Kennedy said, superimposing herself over a screenshot of the ‘GOVERNING LAW AND JURISDICTION' section of Waze's terms and conditions. “What are we doing?”

The aforementioned section featured in the screenshot named the country of Israel multiple times.

“These terms will be governed solely by the laws of the State of Israel, without giving effect to any conflicts of law principles,” the section reads. “Any dispute … will be under the exclusive jurisdiction of the competent court in the Tel Aviv district in Israel.”

Why was this shocking to Kennedy?

Kennedy notes on her congressional candidate website that she supports humanitarian aid being sent to Palestine. She also says the United States should not fund Israel.

“I was so prepared for governing law and jurisdiction to say like, ‘The governing law and jurisdiction will be set by the [American] state in which you are in.' … Because, you know, states' rights and they have different laws,” Kennedy said in her video. “I was not prepared for the entire paragraph.”

Kennedy said in her caption that she “should've known.” She wrote in the text overlaying her video that she was “going to delete Waze now.”

“I was right about the surveillance state,” she finished. “Data is the highest-selling thing right now … It is the only thing in the world to ever beat out sex. Oh my god, data sells.”

@ashtynkennedy4 Really expected it to be flock or something….should've known #waze #themoreyouknow #termsandconditions #updates #maps ♬ original sound – YT: Ashtyn's Public Ledger

Is it different for Waze users in other countries?

While the screenshot in Kennedy's video is accurate in the United States, Israel is not named in the ‘GOVERNING LAW AND JURISDICTION' section of Waze's terms and conditions for all users. For residents of the UK or EU, the terms read differently.

“If you're a resident of the EEA, UK or Switzerland, these Terms and your relationship with Waze under these terms are governed by the laws of your country of residence, and you can file legal disputes at your local courts,” the EU/UK terms read.

However, Israel is still identified in the broader EU/UK terms and conditions.

Waze's ties to Israel, explained

Thousands of commenters echoed Kennedy's sentiment and said they'd deleted Waze in the wake of her revelation. One commenter said, “And just like that, after 13 years of loyal use, Waze is deleted from my phone.”

Multiple Reddit posts from recent years critically allude to Waze being an “Israeli Reddit app.” In one post, a user urged others to “ditch” the app in favor of non-Israel-owned alternatives like Wain.

So what does the mention of Israel in Waze's terms and conditions actually mean?

A July 2026 fact-check by Snopes, titled “Does Israel control Waze, surveil app's users? What we know,” addresses concerns regarding the Israeli government and potential surveillance of users. Snopes concludes that the claim has a mixture of true and undetermined information.

“It's true that Waze, founded in Israel in 2008 and acquired by Google in 2013, includes terms of use that reference Israeli courts and laws governing the app's legal matters,” Snopes reports. “Waze's co-founders also reportedly served in the Israeli military. However … no credible, publicly available evidence confirmed or debunked the claim that Israel's government, military or other Israeli officials secretly use Waze to surveil the app's users.”

Google responds

In an email to Buzz News, a Google spokesperson called claims of Waze offering up user data for surveillance purposes “completely false.”

“Claims about Waze sharing data for surveillance are completely false – we operate under strict privacy policies that protect user data and comply with established legal data protection standards,” the spokesperson wrote. “It is standard industry practice for an app's Terms of Service to say that disputes will be handled by courts in the country where the app developer is headquartered. Waze's Terms of Service have reflected this since 2008.”

Buzz News has also reached out to Kennedy via email.