In June, the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) signed an acquisition plan for a 5-year, nearly $5.3 million contract for a controversial surveillance tool called Tangles from tech firm PenLink, according to records obtained by the Texas Observer through a public information request. The deal is nearly twice as large as the company’s $2.7 million two-year contract with the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Tangles is an artificial intelligence-powered web platform that scrapes information from the open, deep, and dark web. Tangles’ premier add-on feature, WebLoc, is controversial among digital privacy advocates. Any client who purchases access to WebLoc can track different mobile devices’ movements in a specific, virtual area selected by the user, through a capability called “geofencing.” Users of software like Tangles can do this without a search warrant or subpoena. (In a high-profile ruling, the Fifth Circuit recently held that police cannot compel companies like Google to hand over data obtained through geofencing.) Device-tracking services rely on location pings and other personal data pulled from smartphones, usually via in-app advertisers. Surveillance tech companies then buy this information from data brokers and sell access to it as part of their products.
WebLoc can even be used to access a device’s mobile ad ID, a string of numbers and letters that acts as a unique identifier for mobile devices in the ad marketing ecosystem, according to a US Office of Naval Intelligence procurement notice.
Wolfie Christl, a public interest researcher and digital rights activist based in Vienna, Austria, argues that data collected for a specific purpose, such as navigation or dating apps, should not be used by different parties for unrelated reasons. “It’s a disaster,” Christl told the Observer. “It’s the largest possible imaginable decontextualization of data. … This cannot be how our future digital society looks like.”
This is something that was going to happen eventually it’s just kind of ironic that it’s a deep red state going for government surveillance like this
Nothing says “small government” and “freedom” quite like mass surveillance.
They need mass surveillance to put down the protests for
freedom… errr to protect freedom (white people freedomrich white people freedom).
Red states have more poor, desperate people with guns so better keep them from getting uppity.
Every accusation is a confession. Always.
Totally on brand really. Republicans want to eliminate white collar crime (by never prosecuting it) and catch 110% of blue collar crimes.
Should gather Abbott’s device id and his families, and post all of their data in a constant stream of location, search results, and such. Soon as his and his families families data is being posted they’ll rethink it as a privacy issue.
But doxing is illegal 🤪
Big brother in action. Got to keep those women in line. /s
I know what you mean by /s but seriously that’s gotta be one of the drivers behind this decision. If Republicans control the state after the next gubernatorial election I could totally see a new law to punish the patient of a abortion (it just targets doctors for now).
Will they finally see or hear me say
FUCK GREG ABBOTT
I hope they can, I’m doing it as hard as I can …
Remember that one time in Batman where they built a mass surveillance program using phones and decided it was so morally objectionable they immediately destroyed it after?
EFF recommendation on Ad Tracking: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/05/how-disable-ad-id-tracking-ios-and-android-and-why-you-should-do-it-now
I’m fairly in tune with my privacy but didn’t even know about this one. I assumed I had disabled all this when I setup my phone.
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Weird ass fcking state. Can we pawn this one off to Mexico?
Isn’t the US already a surveillance country?
Not to this extent.
NSA: AM I A JOKE TO YOU??
It is, but mostly at the Federal level and depending on who’s in the Whitehouse they’re not apt to share that data with the states.
Is there anyway we can open source this technology? I’d love to surveil police and politician phones if possible.
Government know people love to keep track of police and politicians so they are making it illegal.
I just learned you can delete you device id on Android 12 or higher under privacy settings.
Is this the same as the advertising id?
In my phone it said “Advertising ID”. Just deleted mine. Really annoyed this was on by default. Are Linux phones a thing yet? I’m tempted to get the most basic bitch phone for work (they’ll never support a rooted phone or things like that) and a different personal phone that I have TOTAL control over.
Custom ROM?
Linux phones are coming along, Posh is very promising and helping make Linux on mobile possible https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phosh
Im planning on getting a pixel phone next time I switch and will install grapheneos on it. Fuck safetynet compatibility. I’m tired of all the bullshit I have to endure on my Samsung phone.
Texas reeks of freedom.
Texas reeks
of freedomftfy
nobody has ever said “remember that good thing that came out of texas”.
If it’s not food, then yeah, we’re setting all the wrong precedents.
Y’all aren’t exactly known for great food either lol
As a Texan who has no pride in their state at all and is actively making plans to move to a different state, I strongly disagree.
Yeah, I’m not a Texan but I also disagree about this. Also, Austin has produced some amazing music over the years (for example, random Austin band I’ve been in love with recently is Being Dead).
So they only needed to say that all this shit is completely depersonalized and so on for the time being, until they did this like thieves they are.
Typical.
It’s also really funny when people say “oh but it’s a democratic country with institutions and rule of law doing this, so it’s fine”, because this is how a country stops being that. Well, people don’t say this about anything in USA, they usually say this about the EU.
This is why we the humanity can’t have nice things.
Because when we build a nice thing, some jerks decide that we can break it and still have it, because we “already have it”. Completely illogical, but all proponents of government control against freedom and rules-based order against humanism are like that.
Freedom rations are going up this week from 10 to 8!
Because Laredo wasn’t dystopian enough already.
