Senator Ron Wyden has raised concerns about push notifications on smartphones, suggesting that foreign governments may be accessing information about smartphone users through these notifications without their knowledge.
He has requested the Department of Justice to allow companies like Apple and Google to release information about smartphone app notification records to address this potential privacy issue.
The investigation was prompted by a tip received by the senator’s office roughly 18 months ago, and it is suggested that the DOJ policy may be impeding transparency on this matter. (Trending: Joe Biden Admits He’s ‘Not Sure’ About Running If Trump Wasn’t)
“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,” Sen. Ron Wyden said.
“I would ask that the DOJ repeal or modify any policies that impede this transparency,” he added.
“Earlier this year French developer David Libeau said users and developers were often unaware of how their apps emitted data to the US tech giants via push notifications, calling them ‘a privacy nightmare,’” Reuters noted.
“In this case, the federal government prohibited us from sharing any information,” Apple stated.
“Now that this method has become public we are updating our transparency reporting to detail these kinds of requests.”
Additionally, concerns have been raised about the potential privacy implications of push notifications, and Apple has expressed willingness to update their transparency reporting to address these concerns.
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