US Law Enforcement Agencies Using ‘Fog Reveal’ Tool to Track Users With Data From Popular Apps: Report

US law enforcement agencies have reportedly been accessing the location of 250 million smartphones in order to access “hundreds of billions of records”, using a tool provided by a private company that purchases information on users collected by data brokers sourced from popular apps. The company’s device tracking tool relies on advertising IDs from user’s phones that allow officials to trace their movements, without the need for a warrant, over time while focusing and analysing patterns, according to a report.

According to a detailed report by the Associated Press based on documents obtained by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a tool called Fog Reveal, was sold in around 40 contracts to over 20 US law enforcement agencies. The tool is created by Virginia-based Fog Data Science and is reportedly used extensively by law enforcement agencies in the US. 

Unlike lawful location tracking of users that requires the lengthy process of obtaining a warrant, the use of Fog Reveal allows law enforcement agencies to track smartphones using data that is sourced from popular apps like Starbucks or Waze, according to the report. The data on user locations allow the agencies to trace people’s movements over time, while creating “patterns of life”, which are based on location information.  

The report states that the use of the tool was highly secretive — in some cases, it was not mentioned in US court records, which could prevent lawyers from defending their clients in cases where the technology was used. 

Fog Reveal relies on data sourced from popular apps, such as Waze and Starbucks — which assign users an advertising identifier. The location details of users, which are tied to their ID, is both used to target them with ads, while it makes its way to companies like Fog Data Science, according to the report, which states that the companies were unaware that the data was being used for the location tracking tool. 

While the advertising IDs do not contain the name, phone number, or personally identifying details of a user, the report says that location details can be used over time to de-anonymise the user and analyse their movements.

As the report points out, US courts are still weighing the use of location information, and the latest such ruling from the US Supreme Court held that law enforcement agencies would require a warrant in most cases, to view records of users’ movements and location.    


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Indian Railways Said to Consider Withdrawing Tender for Consultant to Monetise Customer Data

The Indian Railways has floated a tender to hire a consultant to monetise its passenger and freight customer data with the aim to generate revenue up to Rs 1,000 crore, but sources told PTI it may be withdrawn amid concerns over privacy issues. While many on social media, including advocacy groups have raised concerns over violation of data privacy issues, government sources have clarified that the consultant would advise the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) on steps to improve its existing business and plan strategies to monetise future opportunities.

While the Indian Railways has not officially commented on the tender, highly placed sources told PTI it will be withdrawn “considering the fact that the Data Protection Bill has not been finalised”.

According to the tender document, the data to be studied will include information captured by the transporter’s various public facing applications such as “name, age, mobile number, gender, address, e-mail ID, class of journey, payment mode, login or password” and other details.

The IRCTC has more than 10 crore users, of which 7.5 crore are active users.

The document also stated that the consultant, once finalised, will be provided the details of applications and the data collected thereon for conducting the study for ‘Monetization of Digital Data of Indian Railways’.

The consultant shall study the data of passenger, freight and parcel businesses of the Indian Railways such as PRS, NGeT, NTES, UTS, Rail Madad, FOIS, TMS, e-CRM, and PMS, as well as vendor-related data from applications like IREPS, VMS and IPAS.

The document titled ‘The Scope of Work for Project A: For study of Monetization of Digital Data of Indian Railways(IR)’ said the consultant would also be provided access to the digital data systems which generate behavioural data such as flow of passengers, class of journey, frequency of journey, travel time, booking time, age group and gender, payment mode, number of destinations and booking modes.

The objective of the exercise, it said, is for the IRCTC to leverage its data assets and market position to drive strong growth in revenues. This can be achieved by improving customer experience, expanding the portfolio of products being offered to the customers and/or developing new business lines and partnerships, the document stated.

“IRCTC envisages a revenue generation potential of Rs 1,000 crore through Monetization of its Digital Assets. IRCTC wishes to engage a consulting firm to help in identification, design, and development and roll-out of data monetization opportunities,” it said.

While the Railways is yet to officially respond, sources close to the development said the IRCTC does not “sell its data and neither has any intention to do so”. They said the consultant is being hired to advise the IRCTC on steps to improve its existing business and plan out strategies to monetise future businesses. It will also focus on how the IRCTC could adopt new business opportunities.

“IRCTC will also develop new businesses on its own platform and will need assistance from market leaders. IRCTC does not store any financial data of its customers at its end, as at the time of online payment for its various services, control is passed on to the respective payment gateway or bank for the payment,” the sources said.

The document also said that the consultant will study various Acts or laws, including the IT Act, 2000 and its amendments, user data privacy laws, including the General Data Protection Regulation and the current ‘Personal Data Protection Bill, 2018’, and accordingly, propose the business models for monetisation of digital assets.

The consultant would also prepare a roadmap for data monetisation of the digital data collected at various customer-facing and vendor-related applications which include zonal railways, divisions, and other units like CRIS, and PSUs like IRCTC and Railtel.

Tasks listed for the appointed consultant include segregation of monetisable data sets, identification of market potential internationally, and preparation of a roadmap for data monetisation of the digital data.

Internet Freedom Foundation, a Delhi-based non-governmental organisation advocating digital rights and liberties, has raised concerns over the tender and outlined its pitfalls in a series of tweets.

“Hey train travellers, your data will soon be monetised by the govt. and that too, in the absence of a data protection legislation! …A profit maximisation goal will result in greater incentives for data collection, violating principles of data minimisation & purpose limitation. Past experiences from the misuse of Vahan database amplify fears of mass surveillance & security risks,” it said.

“IRCTC, a government-controlled monopoly, must not prioritise perverse commercial interests over the rights and interests of citizens. And given the recent withdrawal of the Data Protection Bill, 2021, such monetisation becomes even more concerning,” the NGO added.


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Hey Siri: Virtual Assistants Are Listening to Children and Using the Data

In many busy households around the world, it’s not uncommon for children to shout out directives to Apple’s Siri or Amazon’s Alexa. They may make a game out of asking the voice-activated personal assistant (VAPA) what time it is, or requesting a popular song. While this may seem like a mundane part of domestic life, there is much more going on. The VAPAs are continuously listening, recording and processing acoustic happenings in a process that has been dubbed “eavesmining,” a portmanteau of eavesdropping and datamining. This raises significant concerns pertaining to issues of privacy and surveillance, as well as discrimination, as the sonic traces of peoples’ lives become datafied and scrutinised by algorithms.

These concerns intensify as we apply them to children. Their data is accumulated over lifetimes in ways that go well beyond what was ever collected on their parents with far-reaching consequences that we haven’t even begun to understand.

Always listening

The adoption of VAPAs is proceeding at a staggering pace as it extends to include mobile phones, smart speakers and the ever-increasing number products that are connected to the Internet. These include children’s digital toys, home security systems that listen for break-ins, and smart doorbells that can pick up sidewalk conversations.

There are pressing issues that derive from the collection, storage and analysis of sonic data as they pertain to parents, youth, and children. Alarms have been raised in the past — in 2014, privacy advocates raised concerns about how much the Amazon Echo was listening to, what data was being collected and how the data would be used by Amazon’s recommendation engines.

And yet, despite these concerns, VAPAs and other eavesmining systems have spread exponentially. Recent market research predicts that by 2024, the number of voice-activated devices will explode to over 8.4 billion.

Recording more than just speech

There is more being gathered than just uttered statements, as VAPAs and other eavesmining systems overhear personal features of voices that involuntarily reveal biometric and behavioural attributes such as age, gender, health, intoxication, and personality.

Information about acoustic environments (like a noisy apartment) or particular sonic events (like breaking glass) can also be gleaned through “auditory scene analysis” to make judgments about what is happening in that environment.

Eavesmining systems already have a recent track record for collaborating with law enforcement agencies and being subpoenaed for data in criminal investigations. This raises concerns of other forms of surveillance creep and profiling of children and families.

For example, smart speaker data may be used to create profiles such as “noisy households,” “disciplinary parenting styles” or “troubled youth.” This could, in the future, be used by governments to profile those reliant on social assistance or families in crisis with potentially dire consequences.

There are also new eavesmining systems presented as a solution to keep children safe called “aggression detectors.” These technologies consist of microphone systems loaded with machine learning software, dubiously claiming that they can help anticipate incidents of violence by listening for signs of raising volume and emotions in voices, and for other sounds such as glass breaking.

Monitoring schools

Aggression detectors are advertised in school safety magazines and at law enforcement conventions. They have been deployed in public spaces, hospitals and high schools under the guise of being able to preempt and detect mass shootings and other cases of lethal violence.

But there are serious issues around the efficacy and reliability of these systems. One brand of detector repeatedly misinterpreted vocal cues of kids including coughing, screaming, and cheering as indicators of aggression. This begs the question of who is being protected and who will be made less safe by its design.

Some children and youth will be disproportionately harmed by this form of securitised listening, and the interests of all families will not be uniformly protected or served. A recurrent critique of voice-activated technology is that it reproduces cultural and racial biases by enforcing vocal norms and misrecognising culturally diverse forms of speech in relation to language, accent, dialect, and slang.

We can anticipate that the speech and voices of racialised children and youth will be disproportionately misinterpreted as aggressive sounding. This troubling prediction should come as no surprise as it follows the deeply entrenched colonial and white supremacist histories that consistently police a “sonic color line.” Sound policy Eavesmining is a rich site of information and surveillance as children and families’ sonic activities have become valuable sources of data to be collected, monitored, stored, analysed and sold without the subject’s knowledge to thousands of third parties. These companies are profit-driven, with few ethical obligations to children and their data.

With no legal requirement to erase this data, the data accumulates over children’s lifetimes, potentially lasting forever. It is unknown how long and how far-reaching these digital traces will follow children as they age, how widespread this data will be shared or how much this data will be cross-referenced with other data. These questions have serious implications on children’s lives both presently and as they age.

There are a myriad threats posed by eavesmining in terms of privacy, surveillance and discrimination. Individualised recommendations, such as informational privacy education and digital literacy training, will be ineffective in addressing these problems and place too great a responsibility on families to develop the necessary literacies to counter eavesmining in public and private spaces.

We need to consider the advancement of a collective framework that combats the unique risks and realities of eavesmining. Perhaps the development of a Fair Listening Practice Principles — an auditory spin on the “Fair Information Practice Principles” — would help evaluate the platforms and processes that impact the sonic lives of children and families.

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iOS 16 Unveiled With Revamped Lock Screen, Notifications, System Apps at WWDC 2022: All the New Features

Apple has official unveiled iOS 16, the next-generation version of its operating system for compatible iPhone models. As previous leaks and rumours suggested, Apple has introduced changes and improvements across the system at its annual WWDC keynote event. The software update to iOS 16 will arrive later this year on iPhone 8 and later devices — likely in September — and will feature improvements to the operating system, including an overhauled lock screen and notification system, along with improved and redesigned system apps. Developer previews will be available this week followed by a public beta next month, ahead of the public rollout later this year.

Improved Lock Screen support

The iOS 16 update will bring one of the biggest updates to the iOS Lock Screen in years with multi-layered cutomisation options. Users will have access to wallpapers with widget-like capabilities and the OS will allow users to pick from different typefaces and colour filters while customising their setup. They can also add widgets for upcoming calendar events, workout status and choose multiple widgets, while picking wallpapers and presets from a curated selection provided by Apple.

iOS 16 will bring multi-layered customisation options to the Lock Screen
Photo Credit: Apple

 

iOS 16 will also offer a Photo Shuffle mode that will allow users to automatically switch up their lockscreens. The update will also bring support for a Weather wallpaper that will show live weather conditions on the lockscreen, or an Astronomy wallpaper, to see views of the Earth, Moon, and solar system. Developers can also use WidgetKit to make it easier to bring their content to the lockscreen, according to Apple. 

Apple has revamped notifications on iOS 16, so they don’t get in the way of personalised wallpapers and Lock Screen layouts. The lockscreen notifications on iOS will now scroll in from the bottom of the screen, making them easier to tap and access with one hand. Users can also pick from apps that make use of the Live Activities API to bring live game scores, check their Uber ride, or control music, from the lock screen, according to Apple. 

Focus Modes

Focus modes were introduced with iOS 15, and Apple is bringing them to the lockscreen with iOS 16. Users can now activate Focus modes from the lock screen with a swipe from the lock screen. Users will be able to tie a Lock Screen Wallpaper and widget set up to a particular Focus mode, allowing them to switch between Focus modes by simply swiping to the corresponding Lock Screen. 

With the arrival of iOS 16, Apple will also bring deeper integration for Focus modes to its own apps, allowing users to filter out tabs, accounts, email, and features from apps like Calendar, Mail, Messages and Safari. Apple will alert users with a message that says Filtered by Focus, for example, in the Messages app. This functionality will also be extended to third party apps, according to the company.  

The Messages app will be updated with the ability to edit and unsend texts
Photo Credit: Apple

 

Messages

Messages is getting a massive update, with the ability to edit messages. This is a feature that is offered on specific messaging apps, such as Telegram. Users can also undo sending of messages, allowing users to recall messages – this is a feature also offered on apps like Signal, Instagram, and WhatsApp.

Users can also mark messages as unread, allowing them to come back to a conversation at a later time, according to Apple. SharePlay is also coming to Messages with iOS 16, allowing users to watch synced content like movies and songs, while sharing playback controls in a Messages chat, according to Apple.  

Mail

Scheduling for emails is coming to the Mail app on iOS 16, according to Apple. Users will also be able to cancel the sending of an email, before it is delivered to a recipient’s inbox. Users will also be reminded if they forgot to add an attachment to their email and resurface older messages with Remind Later and Follow Up suggestions. It is worth noting that these features are offered on competing services and apps, such as Gmail. Apple is also updating the search feature in the Mail app, and will surface recent emails, contacts, documents, and links as they search for emails.    

Improvements to Dictation, Live Text, Visual Look Up

Apple has introduced a new on device dictation experience with iOS 16. The upcoming update will let users dictate text while leaving they keyboard open allowing them to add specific words or punctuation in. The dictation, which will be processed entirely on device, will also automatically add punctuation and emoji.

Users will be able to pause a video to quickly copy text on the screen in iOS 16
Photo Credit: Apple

 

Live Text, which allows users to quickly interact with text from their phone’s camera app and Camera Roll has been expanded to videos with iOS 16. Users can now pause videos and copy text. Meanwhile, Apple will also bring Live Text with translation support. This means users can now translate text using their camera. iOS 16 will also allow users to quickly convert currency from an image captured with their camera or in their Camera Roll, according to Apple. 

Visual Look Up has also been updated with a handy new feature. Users can now tap and hold on a subject to lift it from the image and place it into another app like Messages. Meanwhile, Apple has also updated the feature, which could originally identify plants and pets — it will be able to identify birds, insects, and statues with iOS 16. 

Apple Wallet

Sharing keys and IDs is getting expanded support in Apple Wallet, allowing users to share ID for identity and age verification. Menahwile, home, office, hotel, and car keys can be shared with other users securely via the Messages and Mail apps, allowing them to access the same keys directly in their Wallet App. The company says it is also working with the IETF industry standard for support to share keys with non-Apple users. 

Apple also announced support for Apple Pay Later, a system to allow users to make four equal payments with zero interest and no fees, spread over six weeks. It can be used everywhere Apple Pay is supported online or in-app and uses the MasterCard network, according to the company. Apple will also let users check orders and track delivery with a new Apple Pay Order Tracking feature. The company says it has partnered with Shopify for the feature. 

Apple Maps will add support for new locations (and 11 new countries) when iOS 16 is released
Photo Credit: Apple

 

Apple Maps

The Cupertino company’s upcoming update will bring Apple Maps support to eleven more countries later this year — Belgium, France, Israel, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Monaco, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Palestinian Territories, Saudi Arabia, and Switzerland. Apple has also announced the ability to multiple stops on Apple Maps — up to 15 stops can now be added in advance.

Meanwhile, users who rely on public transport will also be able to see transit updates, including the cost of travelling and transit card support in Apple Wallet. users will be able to check transit card balance and receive alerts if it is running low and replenish — all inside the app. Users can also take advantage of support for Look Around on other apps, to see Street View-like views of specific areas on third-party apps. 

Apple News 

The Apple News app is being updated with support for a My Sports section. US, UK Canada, and Australia users will be able to follow their favourite teams and leagues, whole accessing scores, schedules, and standings for major professsional and college leagues, according to Apple. Meanwhile, the Apple news app will also offer the ability to view highlights of matches. Apple News+ subscribers will also gain access to premium sports coverage, according to the company. 

Children can now request additional screen time using the Messages app
Photo Credit: Apple

 

Parental Controls

Apple has announced updates for parental controls, allowing parents to manage kids accounts as soon as they set up the device. Parents will get suggestions for age-appropriate restrictions for apps, movies, books, and music. Kids can also request more screen time on Messages with parents, and parents can approve or decline these requests without leaving the chat.  

Fitness and Health

With iOS 16, iPhone users will be able to set up a daily Move goal in the Fitness app and track active calories to close their ring — the company says it will use motion sensors from the smartphone to estimate burned calories for the Move goal, by tracking steps, distance, flights climbed, and workouts from third-party apps. These can also be shared with friends, according to Apple. 

Meanwhile, the Health app will be updated with support for a new Medications feature that will allow users to add and manage their ongoing medications, creating schedules and reminders for medications, vitamins, and supplements. Users in the US will also be able to point their camera at a label to quickly see details about the medication and learn of potential interactions. Health details can also be shared with other users, and records from connected health institutions can also be used to create a PDF document from the Health app.  

With iOS 16, users can choose images to be added to the shared library directly from the Camera app
Photo Credit: Apple

 

iCloud Shared Photo Library

iCloud Shared Photo Library is coming to iOS 16, allowing users to share photos with up to five other users. Users can select specific photos from their Photo library or a specific date range. Users can even choose to automatically choose who to share specific pictures as they are being clicked in the camera, thanks to a new toggle that will be added with the iOS 16 update.

All six members that are part of an iCloud Shared Photos Library will have equal permissions to add, edit, delete or favourite images in the group. iCloud Shared Photos Library on iOS 16 will also surface suggestions for users to share a particular photo that includes particiapants in the shared library, according to the company.  

Safety Check is claimed to protect users whose personal safety is at risk from domestic or intimate partner violence
Photo Credit: Apple

 

Safety Check

At WWDC 2022, Apple announced a new privacy tool called Safety Check, which is designed to help users whose personal safety is at risk from domestic or intimate partner violence. Safety Check is a feature that will allow users to quickly remove access to others. By pressing a button called Start Emergency Reset, users will be able to easily sign out of iCloud on their other devices, reset privacy permissions for all apps, stop sharing their location, and shut down messaging on all other devices except the one they have in their hand. 

The iOS 16 update will only be available for users running iPhone 8 or newer models
Photo Credit: Apple

 

iOS 16 release date

Apple has begun rolling out a developer preview of iOS 16 to members of the Apple Developer Program. Meanwhile, a public beta will be available to iOS users starting in July and users can sign up at the company’s website. The iOS 16 update and the software features shown off at WWDC will be available later this year — likely in September — for iPhone 8 and later models, according to Apple.


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Apple’s New Privacy Ad Showcases a ‘Data Auction’ to Incline People Towards iPhone

Apple on Wednesday kicked off a new ad campaign to promote its key privacy features and eventually convince people to pick an iPhone over the competition. Themed ‘Data Auction’ where an auctioneer is seen selling data of a user, the ad highlights the fact that how people nowadays are losing their personal data at different stages and through various resources, including emails, messages, and browser history. It portrays Apple’s App Tracking Transparency and Mail Privacy Protection as some of the inbuilt features to help protect data tracking. The given offerings aren’t that foolproof, though.

The over one-and-a-half-minute ad begins with introducing protagonist Ellie whose data has been put on auction. The auctioneer puts different types of Ellie’s data on sale. It includes her emails, purchase history, location data, contacts, browser history, and text messages.

Advertisers and marketers capture data from various resources to understand user patterns. The Cupertino company claims that it designs its products and features in a way to “minimise how much of your data” anyone can access.

The ad, which is the second after the last privacy campaign released last year, shows that once Ellie turns on App Tracking Transparency by asking apps to “not track” activity for sharing with advertisers or data brokers. The feature was brought to users in April last year — after some delay due to implementation concerns.

Although Apple says that the feature lets users choose whether an app can track their activity across other apps and websites for advertising and sharing patterns with data brokers, it was recently found to be not foolproof and could still allegedly allow developers to track users.

The ad also demonstrates the Mail Privacy Protection feature that is claimed to protect information such as your IP address and other data when you send an email to a recipient. It works with the preloaded Mail app that is available on the iPhone, iPad, and Mac devices.

Apple additionally has features including Intelligent Tracking Prevention in Safari and Location Services privacy controls that were recently introduced to enhance privacy of iPhone users. The purpose of the ad is to emphasise on these offerings — to eventually convince people to buy an iPhone.

The recent privacy updates have already helped Apple to not just expand its iPhone market but also grow its advertising business as new clients are approaching the company to serve their ads to iPhone users.

Nevertheless, Google is following in the footsteps of Apple for the last few months and implementing certain similar changes to Android to make it a strong competitor against iOS — from the privacy perspective. The Mountain View, California-headquartered company just earlier this week released a campaign called ‘Protected by Android’ to highlight its native privacy-focussed changes on the world’s biggest mobile operating system to take on Apple.

Privacy enhancements available on both iOS and Android are making it easier for users to restrict tracking on their devices. However, advertisers, data brokers, and marketers are exploring new ways to break the system-level restrictions and find avenues to continue to track users to some extent — to retain their ad businesses. The privacy barriers are, though, resulting in cost burdens for companies including Meta and Snap that were previously using activity tracking to target the masses as it has become harder for them to do so nowadays.

That said, the new ad campaign by Apple has started running in 24 countries in total and will be translated in languages other than English in select markets to reach a large number of audiences. The company will also place new billboards in every country where the ad is running to better reach its potential customers.


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Google Revamps Cookie Consent Banner for EU Users With New ‘Reject All’ Button for Search and YouTube

Google will introduce changes to the way it handles cookies for users living in the European Union (EU) in order to better comply with guidance from regulators, the company said on Thursday. Google will display an updated cookie banner — a requirement for all websites serving users in the EU — informing users how cookies are used, adding a new button to quickly reject all non-essential cookies. The changes will affect all users in the EU accessing the company’s search engine and video sharing platform YouTube, according to the company

In a blog post explaining the changes to its cookie banner, Google says that regulators including data protection authorities in France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Spain and the UK have updated their guidance for compliance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) that deals with the handling of personal information of EU residents. The company says it has worked with France’s Commission Nationale de l’Informatique et des Libertés (CNIL) to fully redesign its approach to handling cookies on YouTube and on its search engine.

Websites that serve users in the EU are expected to display a banner detailing the cookies are used on the website and offer users the ability to accept cookies that can be used for various purposes, including measurement of ads, showing personalised content and ads, and track users across websites. While many websites (including Google) display these banners, it is quite a tedious process to reject non-essential cookies from websites. Users who browse a lot in Incognito mode (or Private Browing mode on Firefox) are shown the cookie banner on every visit, leading to the creation of browser extensions like I don’t care about cookies.

Google’s updated cookie consent banner with the new ‘Reject all’ button
Photo Credit: Google Blog

 

After overhauling its cookie consent banner, Google will now offer users the ability to click a Reject all button, next to the original Accept all button. Users can also refine their choices by clicking on the More options button, according to Google. The new banner experience began rolling out to users in France earlier this month, and will soon be available to all users living in the European Economic Area, the UK, and Switzerland, according to Google.

According to the company, modifying the way its cookie consent banner works required “deep, coordinated changes” to critical Google infrastructure. Noting that the changes will impact content creators and websites, Google says that the updated design is in compliance with the regulatory guidance, and the company will continue work on its Privacy Sandbox (previously known as FLoC, or federated learning of cohorts) technology that is touted to be a more privacy respecting solution to third party cookies and tracking on Chrome and Android — but there’s no word on when that technology will be launched by the company.


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