Monitoring company finds iCloud "phenomenal"

With Apple's iCloud, iPhones could be viewed, Google and Facebook could query the exact locations of suspects, reports a monitoring company.

In a non-public presentation, a representative of the monitoring firm Penlink praised Apple's iCloud as "phenomenal". While Apple doesn't unlock iPhones at the request of law enforcement, their backups in iCloud are issued after a search warrant. First reported the magazine Forbes.

In a presentation at the National Sheriffs Association's winter conference, Scott Tuma of Penlink described how the company requests and evaluates data from companies for law enforcement. "If you've done something bad," Tuma said, "I bet you can find it in this backup." Whatsapp messages could also be read via the backups. Unless they are encrypted.

There is a simple reason why Tuma is so enthusiastic about iCloud: Apple has failed to encrypt it so that only the users themselves can access their data and backups. A corresponding function was planned, but was never implemented to avoid a conflict with the FBI.

Use Google and Facebook to track people

The presentation illustrates how much data law enforcement agencies and surveillance companies such as Penlink receive from Apple, Google, Facebook or Snapchat. "[Google] can introduce me to a location down to one meter," Tuma explained.

"I can't tell you how many unsolved cases I've worked on, which are five, six, seven years old and in which the suspects have to be assigned to a driver escape or a sexual assault." Law enforcement agencies could be "really lucky" if people carry their smartphones with them and have a Gmail account — which happens very often, Tuma said. In some cases, the location data would be transmitted to law enforcement authorities almost in real time.

"Penlink is proud to support law enforcement agencies in the U.S. and internationally in the fight against crime," the company said. "We don't publicly discuss how our solution is used by our customers." The fact that this nevertheless became public is due to the founder of the watchdog organization Tech Inquiry, Jack Poulson, who participated in the event undercover and secretly recorded the presentation.

Criticism of the far-reaching surveillance

Depending on the provider, however, the way in which Apple, Google or Facebook, for example, grant access to user data differs. Facebook, for example, offers a portal specifically for law enforcement agencies. However, if an investigator does not re-register every hour, he will be locked out. "This shows how annoying Facebook is," Tuma said. Therefore, Penlink has automated the login to the Facebook portal.

Jennifer Granick, a surveillance and cybersecurity advisor at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), raised concerns about the amount of information the government collects about Penlink. "The law requires the police to keep the intercepted data to a minimum and prove the need," she said.

"It's hard to imagine that eavesdropping on 50 social media accounts is necessary on a regular basis, and I wonder if the police will then go to all the people who comment on Facebook posts or are members of groups to tell them they've been bugged," Granick said, referring to a statement by Tuma that the 50 accounts in question were monitored in a California case.