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/

  • @recapitatedEnglish
    7•19 days ago

    I can’t speak to your experience but I’ve been farting around on the Internet since the mid 90s and I promise nothing ever changes.

    Smaller communities tend to be more concise, that is true.

    But what you have here is the hand you’re dealt. Complaining isn’t going to change anything any more thank joking. You can be the change you seek here by suggesting a course of action that isn’t asking others to suggest a course of action to you. If you’re seeking a course of action, you can try asking here.

    But commenters on tech news aren’t likely to be expert activists, especially in whatever issue is your top concern.

    My best advice to you is

    • practice acceptance of reality, not as defeat but as the first step to understanding and deciding an action

    • determine how much capacity you, as a person, have to contribute to a cause

    • determine one cause you care about and can be effective at contributing to

    After doing those things, SEEK OUT like minded groups who have leadership and self discipline and are effective.