(Ken Silva, Headline USA) It seems like the public is learning about new ways the U.S. government spies on it nearly every day.
Wednesday was no exception. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., revealed in a letter to the Justice Department that investigators are employing an innovative method to surveil how their targets use smartphone apps.
Wyden said he received a tip about a year ago that government agencies were demanding records from Google and Apple about users’ “push notifications”—instant alerts delivered to smartphone users by apps, such as a notification about a new text message or a news update.
According to Wyden, push notifications aren’t sent directly from apps to their users. Instead, the apps typically send their notifications to Google or Apple, which serve as a “digital post office” of sorts, passing along those notifications to the user.
For iPhones, this service is provided by Apple’s Push Notification Service; for Android phones, it’s Google’s Firebase Cloud Messaging.
While these services are convenient for users and developers, they have their drawbacks, Wyden noted.
“These services ensure timely and efficient delivery of notifications, but this also means that Apple and Google serve as intermediaries in the transmission process,” Wyden warned.
“As with all of the other information these companies store for or about their users, because Apple and Google deliver push notification data, they can be secretly compelled by governments to hand over this information,” he said.
“Consequently, Apple and Google are in a unique position to facilitate government surveillance of how users are using particular apps.”
According to Wyden, Google and Apple have declined to share information with his office on the grounds that they’re prohibited from doing so by the government. Wyden asked Attorney General Merrick Garland to allow the companies to inform users how the DOJ spies on their push notifications.
“Apple and Google should be permitted to be transparent about the legal demands they receive, particularly from foreign governments, just as the companies regularly notify users about other types of government demands for data,” the senator said.
“These companies should be permitted to generally reveal whether they have been compelled to facilitate this surveillance practice, to publish aggregate statistics about the number of demands they receive, and unless temporarily gagged by a court, to notify specific customers about demands for their data.”
Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.
