U.S. senator Ron Wyden has accused foreign governments of demanding data from Apple and Google to allow them to spy on smartphone users.
He says he was tipped off that unnamed foreign governments have been being given access to push notifications: the pop-ups that appear on screen to alert users to new messages, updates, news and app updates. These notifications pass through Apple and Google’s servers via Apple’s Push Notification Service or Google’s Firebase Cloud Messaging, giving the companies access to the data.
According to Wyden, the companies are banned from discussing the practice by the US government. This means that, unlike other government requests for data, these requests don’t appear in either of the companies’ transparency reports.
“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,” Wyden wrote in a letter to attorney general Merrick Garland.
“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.”
The data involved includes metadata detailing which app received a notification and when, as well as the phone and associated Apple or Google account to which that notification was meant to be delivered. In certain circumstances, says Wyden, it might also include unencrypted content, which could range from back-end directives for the app to the actual text displayed to a user in an app notification.
Wyden doesn’t blame Apple or Google, or indeed app developers, but is calling on the Department of Justice to remove or modify any policies preventing the companies from being open about the practice.
“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,” he wrote.
Apple has told Reuters that, now the practice has come to light, it feels able to be more transparent.
“Apple is committed to transparency and we have long been a supporter of efforts to ensure that providers are able to disclose as much information as possible to their users,” a spokesperson said.
“In this case, the federal government prohibited us from sharing any information and now that this method has become public we are updating our transparency reporting to detail these kinds of requests.”
Apple and Google have been approached for comment.
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