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.”

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/

  • @qooqieEnglish
    98•18 days ago

    This is something that was going to happen eventually it’s just kind of ironic that it’s a deep red state going for government surveillance like this

      • TimLovesTech (AuDHD)(he/him)English
        28•17 days ago

        They need mass surveillance to put down the protests for freedom … errr to protect freedom (white people freedom rich white people freedom).

    • @SlopppyEngineerEnglish
      13•17 days ago

      Red states have more poor, desperate people with guns so better keep them from getting uppity.

    • @BrianTheeBiscuiteerEnglish
      11•17 days ago

      Totally on brand really. Republicans want to eliminate white collar crime (by never prosecuting it) and catch 110% of blue collar crimes.

      • @LifeInMultipleChoiceEnglish
        12•17 days ago

        Should gather Abbott’s device id and his families, and post all of their data in a constant stream of location, search results, and such. Soon as his and his families families data is being posted they’ll rethink it as a privacy issue.