In June, the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) signed an acquisition plan for a 5-year, nearly $5.3 million contract for a controversial surveillance tool called Tangles from tech firm PenLink, according to records obtained by the Texas Observer through a public information request. The deal is nearly twice as large as the company’s $2.7 million two-year contract with the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Tangles is an artificial intelligence-powered web platform that scrapes information from the open, deep, and dark web. Tangles’ premier add-on feature, WebLoc, is controversial among digital privacy advocates. Any client who purchases access to WebLoc can track different mobile devices’ movements in a specific, virtual area selected by the user, through a capability called “geofencing.” Users of software like Tangles can do this without a search warrant or subpoena. (In a high-profile ruling, the Fifth Circuit recently held that police cannot compel companies like Google to hand over data obtained through geofencing.) Device-tracking services rely on location pings and other personal data pulled from smartphones, usually via in-app advertisers. Surveillance tech companies then buy this information from data brokers and sell access to it as part of their products.
WebLoc can even be used to access a device’s mobile ad ID, a string of numbers and letters that acts as a unique identifier for mobile devices in the ad marketing ecosystem, according to a US Office of Naval Intelligence procurement notice.
Wolfie Christl, a public interest researcher and digital rights activist based in Vienna, Austria, argues that data collected for a specific purpose, such as navigation or dating apps, should not be used by different parties for unrelated reasons. “It’s a disaster,” Christl told the Observer. “It’s the largest possible imaginable decontextualization of data. … This cannot be how our future digital society looks like.”
As a Texan who has no pride in their state at all and is actively making plans to move to a different state, I strongly disagree.
Yeah, I’m not a Texan but I also disagree about this. Also, Austin has produced some amazing music over the years (for example, random Austin band I’ve been in love with recently is Being Dead).
It’s a shame the politicians suck so hard, because they could make a killing on tourism if they’d get out of their own way.
Name food or foods that originated in Texas that are worth even a mention.
WHO THE FUCK CARES THE COPS HAVE A LEGAL DEVICE TRACKER CAN WE PLEASE STOP MEMEING AND FOCUS FOR ONE FUCKDAMN MINUTE?!
What would you like non-Texans like myself to do to help?