A user’s Apple account, known as an Apple ID, and the “associated records” related to the company’s push notification service can only be obtained by law enforcement through a court order or a search warrant approved by a judge, according to the company’s newly updated guidelines.
Apple previously allowed authorities to obtain records associated with its push notifications through a subpoena, TechCrunch reported, which police departments and law enforcement agencies can issue without judicial authority.
The change comes about a week after Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) wrote to Attorney General Merrick Garland about concerns that foreign governments could be using push notifications to spy on smartphone users, The Hill’s Miranda Nazzaro reported.
Wyden said his office received a tip last year that foreign governments were asking Apple and Google for their records of smartphone notifications. He argued users should be made aware when governments ask for information about their data.
Push notifications are used by a variety of Apple applications and third-party apps to alert users. As Wyden explained in his letter, push notifications are not sent by individual apps but rather through the smartphone’s operating provider.
Since Google and Apple serve as “intermediaries” for push notifications, they can store the data associated with the notifications. Google already required a court order for law enforcement to get push notification-related data.
“This is how oversight is supposed to work,” Wyden said in a statement to The Hill, adding, “Apple is doing the right thing by matching Google and requiring a court order to hand over push notification related data.”
Read more in a full report at TheHill.com.
