Category Archives: stingrays

Amnesty sues NYPD, seeking details about facial recognition technology and arrest data

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Two watchdog groups sued the New York Police Department over the agency’s refusal to disclose public records about its acquisition of facial recognition technology and other surveillance tools. The lawsuit, filed by Amnesty International and Surveillance Technology Oversight Project, could force the NYPD to hand over records that will shed light on the depth of its surveillance capabilities. “It’s so outrageous that when New Yorkers came out to protest police abuse they were just met with more of the same,” said Albert Fox Cahn, executive director of S.T.O.P. “We have no idea how often they were using this technology to track New Yorkers who were exercising their First Amendment rights.” Amnesty International last September filed a request seeking public records about the procurement, functionality and general use of facial recognition technology, drones and other surveillance technologies by the NYPD before and during Black Lives Matters protests. The NYPD denied the […]

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There’s a new open-source project to detect cellphone-snooping technology

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In October 2016, during popular protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline, a technologist named Cooper Quintin took a red-eye flight from San Francisco to North Dakota and made his way to the Standing Rock Reservation. There had been reports of police surveillance of the protesters, and Quintin suspected that involved a device known as an IMSI catcher or cell-site simulator. The technology, sometimes referred to as a Stingray, spoofs a cellular tower, tricking your phone into revealing its location. From there, data-stealing attacks on the phone are possible. Police and spies use the gear for surveillance. At Standing Rock, Quintin took out his software-defined radio, scanning for abnormal signals, and opened up an Android app known for spotting IMSI catchers. He didn’t get any hits. “I had no idea what I was doing,” said Quintin, a security researcher at the nonprofit Electronic Frontier Foundation. He was using technology designed for […]

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US authorities now need warrant for your cellphone location data

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Privacy activists scored a legal victory this week after the Supreme Court ruled it unlawful for law enforcement and federal agencies to access cellphone location records without a warrant. Continue reading US authorities now need warrant for your cellphone location data→

Mounties admit to using cellphone-snooping ‘stingrays’

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But other spying devices placed at Montreal’s Trudeau airport and near Parliament in Ottawa nothing to do with government, says minister Continue reading Mounties admit to using cellphone-snooping ‘stingrays’→