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The Tech Used To Monitor Inmate Calls Is Able To Track Civilians Too (thedailybeast.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the off-label-use dept.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Daily Beast: Securus Technologies' programs are used in thousands of prisons and detention centers nationwide to track calls to inmates, but the company's offerings are also capable of tracking and geolocating people's cellphones without any warrant or oversight, The New York Times reports. Securus obtains location information though data from major cellphone providers the same way marketers do. It also advertises the technology to law-enforcement agencies as a tool to find murder suspects, missing people, and those at-large -- but the feature can easily be abused for access to millions of cellphone users.

One Missouri sheriff used the service at least 11 times between 2014 and 2017, and secretly tracked state highway patrol members and a judge, prosecutors said. While the company said it "required customers to upload a legal document" to certify the location lookup, the Federal Communications Commission claims Securus did not "conduct any review of surveillance requests" -- giving law enforcement tracking power without verification of approval or oversight.

2 of 35 comments (clear)

  1. I have read this story multiple times... by squiggleslash · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I've read this story in multiple places, and the bit that always hits me, that nobody seems to even be concerned about is this:

    Securus obtains location information though data from major cellphone providers the same way marketers do.

    So... we have a problem with law enforcement being able to geolocate (and, OK, I think there are some legitimate reasons to feel there should be restrictions on that, I get it, I'm not a fascist, but at the same time it's one area most people would agree that if law enforcement has a good reason, they should be able to geolocate a cellphone) but we don't give a shit about marketing people having the exact same data. Oh no, that doesn't bother us at all. We just casually mention that this was the original intent of the data collection, without actually in any way being bothered about it.

    WHAT. THE. FUCK?

    --
    You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
    1. Re:I have read this story multiple times... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Too bad it can't backtrack the caller(s) and obtain absolute verification of the origination of a call.

      Then, the FCC and other Federal agencies would be able to roll up all the spam callers, the faked IRS Robo-Callers, and the assholes from "Account Services", and then put _them_ in prison without access to any kind of telephone, either wired or wireless...