Massachusetts and Google secretly installed trackers on 1 million phones-I always feel like somebody's watchin' me; And I have no privacy
Chris Feola
Author, Perfecting Equilibrium: For a brief, shining moment Web1 democratized data. Then Web2 came along and made George Orwell look like an optimist. Now Web3 is Perfecting John Nash’s Information Equilibrium.
Perfecting Equilibrium Volume One, Issue 72
All I want is to be left alone, in my average home
But why do I always feel
Like I'm in the Twilight Zone?
And I have no privacy
The Big Tech Story for December 6, 2022
The Massachusetts Department of Public Health and Google installed a spyware tracking app on millions of Bay State residents’ Android phones without telling them, according to a law suit filed by the New Civil Liberties Alliance.
The app was originally developed by Google in partnership with the Massachusetts DPH and offered to the public as a way to combat the spread of the virus. The problem was that very few people wound up installing it. That’s when?DPH worked with Google to secretly install and activate the app when users ran their normal software updates . When some people discovered the app running on their phones in the background and deleted it, Google would just install it again during the next update. "Conspiring with a private company to hijack residents’ smartphones without the owners’ knowledge or consent is not a tool that the Massachusetts Department of Public Health ('DPH') may lawfully employ in its efforts to combat COVID-19," the lawsuit said.
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The app causes Android cellphones to constantly connect and exchange data with nearby devices via Bluetooth and create a record of those connections. That data could include phone numbers and personal emails, the suit said.
"Those with access to the system logs can also use time-stamped data… to determine the owner’s past contacts, locations and movement." The lawsuit said plaintiffs believe the "spyware still exists on the overwhelming majority of the devices on which it was installed."
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Christopher J Feola founded PrivacyChain , which provides Data as a Service to Web3 projects and restores the value of content . If you liked this post from Perfecting Equilibrium , why not share it?