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.”
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.
Linux phones are coming along, Posh is very promising and helping make Linux on mobile possible https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phosh
I prefer the GNOME-Mobile DE on phone 😃 but I think goid hardware (like, not 2015 specs) is more the problem than good software right now
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.
Custom ROM?
Get a Pixel phone and flash GrapheneOS onto it. Best out-of-box privacy and security experience that currently exists still with great usability IMO. Does not have an advertising ID or even Google Play services by default. Also, it actually has better battery life in my experience.