Foreign governments are spying on smartphone users through app push notifications, a Democratic senator warned Wednesday.
Ron Wyden of Kansas told the Justice Department that foreign officials have requested data from Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Apple.
Two weeks ago, he demanded answers from the White House about a secret surveillance program known as Hemisphere that tracks trillions of Americans’ phone records every year, even if no criminal charges have been laid against them.
Although details were sparse, Wyden’s letter to the Justice Department offers another way the government could track smartphones.
The app uses push notifications to alert smartphone users of incoming messages, breaking news, and other updates.
These are the audible “sounds” or visual indicators that users receive when they receive an email or when a sports team wins a game.
Users are often unaware that nearly all such notifications go through Google and Apple’s servers.
This will give the companies insight into the traffic flowing to users from these apps, putting them in a “unique position to facilitate government oversight of how users use certain apps.” “Yes,” Wyden said.
He called on the Justice Department to “repeat or modify any policies” that prevent public discussion of push notification spying.
Apple said in a statement that Wyden’s letter gives the company the opportunity it needs to share more details with the public about how the government monitors push notifications.
“In this case, the federal government has prohibited us from sharing any information,” the company said in a statement.
“Now that this methodology has been made public, we are updating our transparency report to provide more details about these types of requests.”
The Justice Department did not respond to a message seeking comment about the push notification monitoring or whether it prevented Apple or Google from talking about it.
Google did not return messages seeking comment.
Wyden’s letter cited “tips” as a source of information about the surveillance.
His staff did not elaborate on the information, but sources familiar with the matter said foreign and U.S. government agencies are asking Apple and Google to help, for example, link anonymous users of messaging apps to specific users. He acknowledged that he was seeking metadata related to push notifications. Apple or Google account.
The official declined to identify the foreign government involved in the request, but said it was a democracy allied with the United States.
The source said it was unclear how long the information had been collected in this way.
Most users don’t think much about push notifications, but they can get some attention from techies because they’re difficult to implement without sending data to Google or Apple.
Earlier this year, French developer David Ribot said that users and developers are often unaware of how their apps are sending data to the US tech giant via push notifications. “It’s a privacy nightmare,” he said.