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.”
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?
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
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.
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
Big brother in action. Got to keep those women in line. /s
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.
As if you needed more reasons to use an ad-blocker.
This one should be such a goddamn no-brainer to make illegal.
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.
Weird ass fcking state. Can we pawn this one off to Mexico?
Will they finally see or hear me say
FUCK GREG ABBOTT
I hope they can, I’m doing it as hard as I can …
Small government.
Ahh yes, the freedom loving state. Texas. That’s right.
Isn’t the US already a surveillance country?
Not to this extent.
NSA: AM I A JOKE TO YOU??
