Push notifications could be used to snoop on Google and Apple users, US Senator warns

Governments could be using push notifications to spy on phones, a top US Senator has warned.

Google and Apple phones process push notifications through servers belonging to the tech giants, allowing governments to potentially demand access to this data.

Messages, breaking news, and other priority updates all generate push-notifications, meaning that encrypted data, potentially including the actual message itself, could be accessed.

Push for Apple and Google transparency on notifications

Ron Wyden, who sits on the Senate Intelligence Committee, shared his concerns in a letter to the US Justice Department, stating that Apple and Google are “in a unique position to facilitate government surveillance of how users are using particular apps.”

“Apple and Google should be permitted to be transparent about the legal demands they receive, particularly from foreign governments, just as the companies regularly notify users about other types of government demands for data.”

“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.”

According to Reuters, both Apple and Google have been approached in requests for push-notification data from both foreign and US government agencies, with Apple spokesperson Shane Bauer stating in an email to TechCrunch that, “Apple is committed to transparency and we have long been a supporter of efforts to ensure that providers are able to disclose as much information as possible to their users.”

“In this case, the federal government prohibited us from sharing any information and now that this method has become public we are updating our transparency reporting to detail these kinds of requests.”

In a similar statement, Matt Bryant of Google said, “We were the first major company to publish a public transparency report sharing the number and types of government requests for user data we receive, including the requests referred to by Senator Wyden.”

Via TechCrunch