DPS plans to spend millions in taxpayer dollars on a controversial software, used first as part of Governor Abbott’s border crackdown, to “disrupt potential domestic terrorism.”

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/19105714

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.”

Archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20240827115133/https://www.texasobserver.org/texas-dps-surveillance-tangle-cobwebs/

  • @[email protected]
    23•21 days ago

    Don’t worry, Ken Paxton has promised to wield these authoritarian powers “responsibly.”

    /s

  • @[email protected]
    12•21 days ago

    Aw cool, the little tracking device I carry around in my purse everywhere I go just got more features.

    As a trans Texan I can’t help but wonder when the ads on my phone will be used to track me down.

    • Zombie-Mantis
      3•21 days ago

      They just recently changed a rule so that if anyone in the state requests a change of gender for their ID they’ll be rejected and have their name put on a list.

      Here’s a Texas Tribune article on the matter.

  • @[email protected]
    10•21 days ago

    In its acquisition plan, DPS states that Intelligence and Counterterrorism division personnel need the tool to “identify and disrupt potential domestic terrorism and other mass casualty threats.”

    I predict this won’t stop the next mass shooting and Abbott is too much of a windbag to not brag about it. Also “domestic terrorism” is absolutely code for socialist, communist, or anti-Zionist.

    • Zombie-Mantis
      3•21 days ago

      Don’t forget those “groomers” who are “indoctrinating” our children into “gender ideology,” also known as “Queer people freely existing in public, safe from violent discrimination.”