Senator Ron Wyden: Governments Are Spying on Apple and Google Users Through Push Notifications
Raphael Satter, reporting for Reuters:
Unidentified governments are surveilling smartphone users via
their apps’ push notifications, a U.S. senator warned on
Wednesday. In a letter to the Department of Justice,
Senator Ron Wyden said foreign officials were demanding the data
from Alphabet’s Google and Apple. Although details were sparse,
the letter lays out yet another path by which governments can
track smartphones. […]
In a statement, Apple said that Wyden’s letter gave them the
opening they needed to share more details with the public about
how governments monitored push notifications. “In this case, the
federal government prohibited us from sharing any information,”
the company said in a statement. “Now that this method has become
public we are updating our transparency reporting to detail these
kinds of requests.”
Google said that it shared Wyden’s “commitment to keeping users
informed about these requests.”
From Wyden’s letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland:
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. 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. I would ask that the DOJ repeal or modify any policies that
impede this transparency.
See also: Joseph Cox, reporting at 404 Media: “Here’s a Warrant Showing the U.S. Government is Monitoring Push Notifications”.
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Raphael Satter, reporting for Reuters:
Unidentified governments are surveilling smartphone users via
their apps’ push notifications, a U.S. senator warned on
Wednesday. In a letter to the Department of Justice,
Senator Ron Wyden said foreign officials were demanding the data
from Alphabet’s Google and Apple. Although details were sparse,
the letter lays out yet another path by which governments can
track smartphones. […]
In a statement, Apple said that Wyden’s letter gave them the
opening they needed to share more details with the public about
how governments monitored push notifications. “In this case, the
federal government prohibited us from sharing any information,”
the company said in a statement. “Now that this method has become
public we are updating our transparency reporting to detail these
kinds of requests.”
Google said that it shared Wyden’s “commitment to keeping users
informed about these requests.”
From Wyden’s letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland:
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. 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. I would ask that the DOJ repeal or modify any policies that
impede this transparency.
See also: Joseph Cox, reporting at 404 Media: “Here’s a Warrant Showing the U.S. Government is Monitoring Push Notifications”.