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Governments have been secretly tracking the app activity of an unknown number of people using Apple and Google smartphones, US Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) revealed today.

According to Wyden, many app users do not realize that these instant alerts “aren’t sent directly from the app provider to users’ smartphones” but instead “pass through a kind of digital post office run by the phone’s operating system provider” to “ensure timely and efficient delivery of notifications.”

Wyden said his office spent the past year investigating a “tip” received in spring 2022 claiming that “government agencies in foreign countries were demanding smartphone ‘push’ notification records from Google and Apple.”

Ars verified that Apple’s law enforcement guidelines now notes that push notification records “may be obtained with a subpoena or greater legal process.”

It’s unclear if either Apple or Google plans to provide any standalone reporting documenting all past requests for push notification data.

Wyden declined to comment further but wrote in his letter that he is pushing the DOJ to not just end the secrecy but also require even more transparency about these secretive requests.

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