Sen. Ron Wyden warns of foreign spying threat through smartphone push notifications

Dec. 6 (UPI) -- Sen. Ron Wyden warned Wednesday that foreign government demands for smartphone push notification data from Google and Apple could facilitate surveillance of users.

In a letter to U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, Wyden, D-Ore., said his office has been investigating a tip that foreign governments are demanding push notification data that can reveal how individual users use particular apps.

Wyden said when asked about the requests by his office, Apple and Google replied that they are currently barred from publicly releasing push notification records in the United States.

He urged Garland and the DOJ to repeal or modify policies that impede transparency.

"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," Wyden wrote.

He noted that the alerts are delivered to smartphone users by apps but filtered through a "digital post office" run by operators such as Apple and Google.

This puts the companies in a unique position to "facilitate government surveillance of how users are using particular apps."

"The data these two companies receive includes metadata, detailing which app received a notification and when, as well as the phone and associated Apple or Google account to which that notification was intended to be delivered," Wyden said.

Wyden did not name which foreign governments were allegedly demanding the push notification data.