DHS has a cell phone sniffer? And more technology news | Privacy SOS.
- VOICE DETECTION DATABASES: Yet another biometric tool marketed to law enforcement is voice identification. One company, VoiceGrid Nation, boasts the ability to store millions of voice patterns and operate checks that it says take only a few seconds to match, with 90% accuracy. Governments are using the technology already, amid typical secrecy. Corporations operating call centers are also using the tool to verify their customers on the phone.
- DHS USING CELL PHONE SNIFFERS: A Department of Homeland Security letter to ACLU technologist Chris Soghoian suggests the agency’s Immigration, Customs Enforcement (ICE) office is using at least one “Stingray” cell phone sniffing device. The technology, also called an “IMSI catcher,” pretends to be a cell phone tower and tricks mobile phones into sending data to the spy tool. Stingrays can defeat mobile encryption and turn phones against their owners, sending the entire contents of the phone and all communications in and out of it to the police instead of to the phone company. At a surveillance technology fair last year, one manufacturer told privacy researcher Eric King that IMSI catchers are great for protests because they enable police to scoop up the personal information of everyone present.
