Google and Apple provide data about smartphone push notifications to governments

Google and Apple provide data on push notifications from smartphones with Android and iOS to governments upon request. A US senator has revealed this. Apple confirms this and says it will now include that data in transparency reports.

US Senator Ron Wyden reveals in his letter that he heard about this practice after a tip. Now that Wyden has spoken about it publicly, Apple can also confirm the existence of this form of government request, the company told Reuters. Previously, the company was not allowed to talk about it by the American government, but with the letter that secrecy has ended. Google has no comment on the matter.

Data from push notifications usually does not show the content of those notifications, but it does show which app they come from and may also contain information about, among other things, the user’s location. It is unknown whether a sender is visible in chat messages, for example. Governments can use that data, among other things, to keep an eye on a specific person. Apple provides push notifications via Apple Push Notification Service, Google via Firebase Cloud Messaging. Many notifications are made via one of those two services, which means that Apple and Google have a lot of information about push notifications.