Sen. Ron Wyden is urging the Justice Department to drop any policies preventing Apple and Google from revealing information on their users that foreign governments force the tech titans to share.
The Oregon Democrat said his team has investigated a tip since last year that foreign governments demanded smartphone push notification records from Apple and Google, and the senator has learned little.
After the tech giants said the U.S. government restricts the companies from releasing the information, Mr. Wyden wrote to Attorney General Merrick Garland this week demanding the Justice Department let Apple and Google share details of the foreign governments’ legal demands.
“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,” Mr. Wyden wrote. “I would ask that the DOJ repeal or modify any policies that impede this transparency.”
Push notifications are alerts appearing on Apple and Google devices that tell users important information such as when someone has called or messaged them. Content of the notifications may include previews of sensitive emails and other communications that pass through Apple and Google’s systems, which Mr. Wyden said function as digital post offices.
“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,” Mr. Wyden wrote. “Importantly, app developers don’t have many options; if they want their apps to reliably deliver push notifications on these platforms, they must use the service provided by Apple or Google, respectively.”
Apple and Google also house data showing which app received a notification and when, and details identifying the corresponding Apple or Google account where the notification was delivered.
Mr. Wyden did not identify the foreign governments demanding Apple and Google enable their surveillance nor reveal the targets of the digital snooping.
Google said it supports Mr. Wyden’s push for the requested information.
“We were the first major company to publish a public transparency report sharing the number and types of government requests for user data we receive, including the requests referred to by Sen. Wyden,” Google said in a statement. “We share the senator’s commitment to keeping users informed about these requests.”
The Justice Department declined to answer The Washington Times’ questions, and Apple didn’t respond.
• Ryan Lovelace can be reached at rlovelace@washingtontimes.com.
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