From the “I didn’t see this one coming” department comes the revelation that governments have been using push notifications to spy on people for some time. This came to light when Oregon Senator Ron Wyden wrote in a letter to the Department of Justice on December 6 asking the Justice Department to lift restrictions in terms of informing the public of this practise:
Because Apple and Google deliver push notification data, they can be secretly compelled by governments to hand over this information
So why should you care? A government could force Apple or Google to hand over data related to push notifications to show how you interact with your phone and the apps on it, as well as give them access to a notification’s complete text and disclose some unencrypted content. All of which is bad of course.
Apple said in a statement published by Reuters the following:
Now that this method has become public, we are updating our transparency reporting to detail these kinds of requests.
True to their word, Apple has now updated its Legal Process Guidelines document to reflect this new reality. Google for its part said this:
Google said that it shared Wyden’s “commitment to keeping users informed about these requests.”
But beyond that, I haven’t seen Google update anything. And the thing is that beyond the US who clearly has been using push notifications to spy on people, it isn’t clear who else is doing it. And it is likely that we won’t get a straight answer on that. Thus it might be wise for Apple and Google to rework how push notifications work so that this sort of spying isn’t a possibility.
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This entry was posted on December 7, 2023 at 10:33 am and is filed under Commentary with tags Apple, Google, Privacy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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Governments Spy On Users Using Push Notifications
From the “I didn’t see this one coming” department comes the revelation that governments have been using push notifications to spy on people for some time. This came to light when Oregon Senator Ron Wyden wrote in a letter to the Department of Justice on December 6 asking the Justice Department to lift restrictions in terms of informing the public of this practise:
Because Apple and Google deliver push notification data, they can be secretly compelled by governments to hand over this information
So why should you care? A government could force Apple or Google to hand over data related to push notifications to show how you interact with your phone and the apps on it, as well as give them access to a notification’s complete text and disclose some unencrypted content. All of which is bad of course.
Apple said in a statement published by Reuters the following:
Now that this method has become public, we are updating our transparency reporting to detail these kinds of requests.
True to their word, Apple has now updated its Legal Process Guidelines document to reflect this new reality. Google for its part said this:
Google said that it shared Wyden’s “commitment to keeping users informed about these requests.”
But beyond that, I haven’t seen Google update anything. And the thing is that beyond the US who clearly has been using push notifications to spy on people, it isn’t clear who else is doing it. And it is likely that we won’t get a straight answer on that. Thus it might be wise for Apple and Google to rework how push notifications work so that this sort of spying isn’t a possibility.
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This entry was posted on December 7, 2023 at 10:33 am and is filed under Commentary with tags Apple, Google, Privacy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.