Whereas Wyden’s letter says that governments outdoors the US have requested folks’s push notification information, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has completed in order properly. A February 2021 search warrant utility submitted by an FBI agent to the US District Court docket in Washington, DC, requested particulars for 2 accounts managed by Meta (then Fb), particularly citing a request for push notification tokens. The search warrant request associated to an investigation into an individual accused of collaborating within the January 6, 2021, assault on the US Capitol.
Meta, which owns Fb, WhatsApp, and Instagram, didn’t instantly reply to WIRED’s request to remark. The DOJ has not but responded to a request for remark. A spokesperson for Sign, the favored encrypted messaging app, additionally didn’t reply.
Though Wyden is asking the DOJ to permit Apple and Google to debate authorities requests for push notification information, the senator’s letter seems to have enabled them to just do that.
An Apple spokesperson tells WIRED that the corporate has up to date its Legislation Enforcement Tips in its transparency report back to mirror authorities requests for push notification information. The corporate may also start to element these requests in its subsequent transparency report.
“Apple is dedicated to transparency and we’ve got lengthy been a supporter of efforts to make sure that suppliers are capable of disclose as a lot info as doable to their customers,” Apple says in a press release. “On this case, the federal authorities prohibited us from sharing any info and now that this methodology has change into public we’re updating our transparency reporting to element these sorts of requests.”
Google confirmed to WIRED that it receives requests for push notification information, however the firm says it already consists of a majority of these requests in its transparency experiences.
“We had been the primary main firm to publish a public transparency report sharing the quantity and varieties of authorities requests for consumer information we obtain, together with the requests referred to by Senator Wyden,” a Google spokesperson tells WIRED. “We share the senator’s dedication to retaining customers knowledgeable about these requests.”
A WIRED evaluation of Google’s most up-to-date transparency report for the interval between December 2019 and December 2022 discovered that it doesn’t particularly escape authorities requests for push notification information, and Google confirmed that it aggregates this information in its transparency report.
Google’s transparency report exhibits that the US authorities requested Google Cloud Platform information from enterprise prospects 175 occasions through the interval, and of these, used a search warrant 13 occasions. It’s unclear whether or not any of these requests for consumer information included push notification information—particulars which will, following Wyden’s letter, be revealed sooner or later.
Extra reporting by William Turton and Dhruv Mehrotra.