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/

  • anarchrist@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    424·
    2 months ago

    Sorry if there was confusion. My main point: leave your narc device at home when doing crimes. Have a good day!

    • NocturnalMorning@lemmy.worldEnglish
      272·
      2 months ago

      Do you think committing a crime is the only time this matters?

      Edit: Imagine being trans, gay, a minority, or just the wrong political party, and the police decide to go after you.

      • anarchrist@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        411·
        2 months ago

        No, also probably when the AI pattern matches your behavior to a criminal’s behavior because you live in the same neighborhood.

        Again I’m not saying this isn’t bad, I’m saying Texas has no idea what they bought or how to use it. The only practical way to use it is the way the feds do, and if they try the AI shit it will likely fuck them legally speaking at the federal level OR orange Julius wins and the NSA starts just giving this shit to Texas, so this will all be moot.

        I think they got grifted out of $5 mil by AI hucksters.

        • NocturnalMorning@lemmy.worldEnglish
          71·
          2 months ago

          I don’t think you have any idea what you’re talking about. This is exactly the kind of thing AI is good at, pattern recognition.

          • BrianTheeBiscuiteer@lemmy.worldEnglish
            3·
            2 months ago

            Good at avoiding false-negatives, not so good at avoiding false-positives. IMHO a 1% false-positive rate is unacceptable when the result is ruining someones life.

          • anarchrist@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
            38·
            2 months ago

            OK explain then. The AI flags you as a criminal and the cops give you a ticket for looking like a crim? The burden of proof is on the state. Now they have more 2x more shit to investigate which means more cop hours. Idk like I also hate the privacy aspect it this but it seems like a boondoggle that will also waste lots of taxpayer money and it would be good to attack it from two rhetorical angles.

            • NocturnalMorning@lemmy.worldEnglish
              61·
              2 months ago

              The burden of proof is on the state

              Do you like know anything about how our system works? People get slapped with frivolous tickets and lawsuits every day, and cops don’t have to deal with shit from it.

            • 31337English
              1·
              2 months ago

              In the Texas counties I’m most familiar with, if you’re arrested and they don’t have a good case, they just keep resetting court dates for years instead of going ahead with the process. If you can’t afford a bond, you’ll be in jail that whole time (which pressures people to take plea deals), if you can secure a bond, you’re out, but with limited rights and a whole lot of hassles to deal with.

    • BrianTheeBiscuiteer@lemmy.worldEnglish
      5·
      2 months ago

      Correlation is not causation. This only indicates a person is in the general area [during a crime] and not that they perpetrated it. People go to jail, wrongfully, with less evidence than this.