Massachusetts, Google Installed ‘Spyware’ Onto Phones To Track COVID Cases Without Users Knowing, Lawsuit Alleges

[Dashinka 24,478]

Covid related, but this goes much further.  Apparently, Massachusetts is taking lessons from China.

 

Massachusetts, Google Installed ‘Spyware’ Onto Phones To Track COVID Cases Without Users Knowing, Lawsuit Alleges

 

“The Massachusetts DPH, like any other government actor, is bound by state and federal constitutional and legal constraints on its conduct,” NCLA Litigation Counsel Peggy Little said, according to a press release. “This ‘android attack,’ deliberately designed to override the constitutional and legal rights of citizens to be free from government intrusions upon their privacy without their consent, reads like dystopian science fiction — and must be swiftly invalidated by the court.”

 

The Mass. Dept. of Public Health worked with Google to auto-install spyware on the smartphones of more than 1 million Commonwealth residents, without their knowledge or consent, in a misguided effort to combat Covid-19. Read about NCLA’s new lawsuit: https://t.co/5t6P73g4t9 pic.twitter.com/Zv9IOUw9aQ

— New Civil Liberties Alliance (@NCLAlegal) November 15, 2022

The DPH even re-installed the contact tracing app onto some Android users’ devices after they discovered its presence and deleted it, the lawsuit alleges. The NCLA claimed Tuesday it did not know of any other state using a “similar surreptitious strategy of auto-installing contact-tracing apps,” citing at least two dozen other states that utilized contact tracing apps in the lawsuit.
 

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/massachusetts-google-installed-spyware-onto-phones-to-track-covid-cases-without-users-knowing-lawsuit-alleges/ar-AA14cW9w

[LIBrty4all 3,749]

I don't live in MA, but had covid tracking notices appear at random on my phone even though I had turned that feature off.  Particularly when I'd return to the US from a foreign destination.

People think they cannot be traced, but a cop friend of mine says they can track the holder of a phone via GPS even if it's powered off.  Google knows ALL...

Edited November 22, 2022 by LIBrty4all