Apple and Google can pass notifications from your cell phone to governments; understand how this works

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Companies admitted that they share data about alerts that applications send to users when requested by authorities. Notifications may include sensitive information, such as personal and financial data. Notifications on iPhone Disclosure/Apple Notifications sent to your cell phone can be accessed by governments, Apple and Google admitted. Companies were questioned in the United States about the transfer of information, which could harm users’ privacy. This is because these alerts made by applications may include sensitive information, such as personal and financial data. An American senator has been investigating this sharing since 2022. But, just at the beginning of the month, the companies admitted that it could happen, in a report published by the Reuters agency about the case. In his investigation, Wyden concluded that governments “may receive unencrypted content, which can range from instructions in application code to the actual text displayed to a user in a notification.” With notifications, it is also possible to access metadata, which shows, for example, which application sent a message and when it was triggered, as well as the phone model and the user’s Apple or Google account. Apple already admitted that it could provide governments with data about devices and services such as iCloud and Apple Pay. And Google already said it could share information from applications like Gmail and YouTube. Understand how it all started and what the developments were: 📲 US Senator Ron Wyden said he had received, in 2022, a complaint that governments were asking for records of notifications sent on iPhone and Android – the countries were not revealed; 🚫 Wyden stated that his team investigated the case and contacted Apple and Google, but was informed that access to details had been prohibited by the US government; 👍 On December 6, the senator requested that the Department of Justice authorize companies to inform users about the transfer of records about notifications; ✍️ The next day, Reuters published a report in which companies admitted that sharing is possible; 📝 Apple said it will update its transparency reports to detail the requests, because the transfer of information has become public; 🤝 And Google said it shares a commitment to keeping users informed about notification log requests. A Reuters source said the US government was among those that requested data on notifications sent by cell phone, but did not reveal other countries that requested information. Also according to the agency, the Department of Justice refused to comment on the surveillance of the notifications or the supposed ban that prevented Apple and Google from disclosing these requests. How do notifications work? For an application to send a notification to its users, it first needs a kind of postal service, which organizes the information. iPhone apps use Apple’s Push Notification Service, while Android apps use Google’s Firebase Cloud Messaging. “These services ensure timely and efficient delivery of notifications, but this also means that Apple and Google act as intermediaries in the transmission process,” Wyden said. The senator stated that, as Apple and Google deliver notifications, companies may be secretly forced to deliver this information to governments. Apple and Google Reuters/Mike Segar/Andrew Kelly What do Apple and Google say? Apple told Reuters that the US government has prohibited it from sharing any information about the forwarding of notifications sent by applications. “Now that this method has been made public, we are updating our transparency reports to detail these types of requests.” The company told Wired that it has updated the English version of its legal process guidelines to make it explicit that notification records can be obtained by governments. Google told g1 that it is publishing “a transparency report sharing the number and types of government requests for user data we receive, including the requests mentioned by Senator Wyden.” “We share the Senator’s commitment to keeping users informed about these requests,” the company said. The most recent data from Google’s transparency report shows that, in the second half of 2022, Brazilian government bodies made 12,773 requests for user information. However, the document does not detail how many requests involved application notifications. How to protect yourself from scams on WhatsApp Scams on WhatsApp: find out how to protect yourself What the first tests of ‘flying cars’ were like in New York New York carries out the first tests with “flying cars”

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