Senators Call on FTC to Investigate Apple, Google’s “Deceptive” Data Privacy Practices

June 28, 2022 - Senators Ron Wyden (D-OR), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Cory Booker (D-NJ), and Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-CA) sent a letter asking the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to launch an investigation into Apple and Google’s “unfair and deceptive” data privacy practices.

The letter alleged that the two tech giants were knowingly “enabling the collection and sale of hundreds of millions of mobile phone users’ personal data,” an action that could have serious consequences in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. The letter was released on June 24, just before the final ruling.

According to the letter, both Apple and Google knowingly facilitated these practices by designing advertising-specific tracking IDs into their mobile operating systems.

“These identifiers have fueled the unregulated data broker market by creating a single piece of information linked to a device that data brokers and their customers can use to link to other data about consumers. This data is bought or acquired from app developers and online advertisers, and can include consumers’ movements and web browsing activity,” the letter stated.

Although this data is supposedly collected anonymously, data brokers have made a business of selling databases that link the advertising identifiers to consumers’ names and addresses, the letter continued.

“But even without buying this additional data, it is often possible to easily identify a particular consumer in a dataset of ‘anonymous’ location records by looking to see where they sleep at night,” the Senators continued.

Apple and Google both allow consumers to opt out of the tracking, but the lawmakers noted that Apple had enabled the tracking ID by default until very recently. Meanwhile, Google still enables the identifier by default and only just provided customers with the option to turn it off.

“By failing to warn consumers about the predictable harms that would result by using their phones with the default settings that these companies chose, Apple and Google enabled governments and private actors to exploit advertising tracking systems for their own surveillance and exposed hundreds of millions of Americans to serious privacy harms,” the letter reasoned.

The presence of the tracking IDs has become an even more urgent matter in the wake of Roe v. Wade, as the Senators predicted it would be. In early June, a group of 40 Congressional Democrats wrote a letter to Google asking them to stop collecting and retaining location information in anticipation of the ruling.

In the letter, led by Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-CA) and Senator Wyden, lawmakers urged Google to stop collecting location data for fear that prosecutors could use it to identify people obtaining abortions.

“We believe that abortion is health care. We will fight tooth and nail to ensure that it remains recognized as a fundamental right, and that all people in the United States have control over their own bodies,” the letter to Google stated. 

“That said, we are concerned that, in a world in which abortion could be made illegal, Google’s current practice of collecting and retaining extensive records of cell phone location data will allow it to become a tool for far-right extremists looking to crack down on people seeking reproductive health care.”

In the more recent letter, addressed to the FTC, lawmakers urged the FTC to investigate Apple and Google’s role in creating a system of surveillance that incentivizes unethical data sales.

“These companies have failed to inform consumers of the privacy and security dangers involved in using those products,” the letter concluded.

“It is beyond time to bring an end to the privacy harms forced on consumers by these companies.”