Ian Patrick, FISM News

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Multiple reports show that some smart devices are able to be tracked by local police and taken over by companies that own the product, prompting concerns from some about user privacy.

The Associated Press released a report on September 1 as a part of their “Tracked” series detailing the first of these concerns.

According to the report, local police spanning from California to North Carolina are using a tool called “Fog Reveal” to search records from 250 million mobile devices. These records are compiled by police to create something they call “patterns of life,” essentially determining location patterns for people they are tracking.

The tool was created and sold by Fog Data Science LLC. The technology is said to use advertising identification numbers from apps such as Waze and Starbucks, which use target ads based on an individual’s interest and movement and sell that information to companies.

Both Waze and Starbucks have responded to the use of their data, saying they had not worked with Fog face-to-face.

Fog Reveal is unique from other similar tracking systems in that it follows devices through the advertising ID, leading police to establish the so-called “patterns of life.”

Bennett Cyphers, a special adviser at digital privacy rights advocacy group Electronic Frontier Foundation, commented that the technology is similar to “a mass surveillance program on a budget.”

The Fog surveillance system can be purchased for as low as $7,500 a year, and it can even be shared among departments.

Matthew Broderick, a Fog managing partner, said that their technology is to help “fill a gap for underfunded and understaffed departments” that are usually “behind in technology adoption.”

It has been used by police since at least 2018 specifically for criminal investigations, including a murder case in Arkansas and determining the movement of a possible participant in the January 6 riot.

Davin Hall, a former crime data analysis supervisor for the police department in Greensboro, North Carolina, actually quit his job in 2020 over the use of Fog Reveal.  Hall said he thought the ability to locate “just anybody in an area” felt like “a very clear violation of the Fourth Amendment.”

Fog has defended its product on multiple occasions, saying that the data is anonymous and there is “no way of linking signals back to a specific device or owner” according to a sales representative. Fog’s Broderick even said in an email that the data it uses is “commercially available” and legally acquired.

Defense attorneys have complained that the tool is rarely mentioned in court records for cases in which it has been used, and worry about the few legal restrictions in its use. There have also been times where a search warrant was not acquired previous to using the tool, but Broderick said that search warrants aren’t required in “the use of the public data.”

Police and prosecutors say that they do not use the information to locate and identify individuals, but to give them a lead to help them identify the persons in question.

One Arkansas prosecutor believes that the fight against technology like Fog Reveal is pointless, saying people can’t expect to consistently use free apps while simultaneously maintaining their digital privacy.

Smart thermostats in Colorado shut down by company during ‘energy emergency’

Meanwhile, another report coming out of Colorado shows how much control a company can have over its smart devices even after it has entered the consumer’s home.

According to ABC Denver7, multiple customers in Colorado were not able to adjust their Xcel brand thermostats during a hot day on August 30. When attempting to adjust the temperatures in their homes, which ran as high as 88 degrees Fahrenheit in some cases, the thermostat cited an “energy emergency” and would not budge from its current settings.

Xcel had confirmed that 22,000 customers were locked out of their thermostats. But these weren’t just any customers – these users had specifically signed up for the Colorado AC Rewards Program.

The program offers incentives for those who want to join, including a $100 sign-on credit and $25 annually after that, but in doing so it also gives some control of their smart thermostats to Xcel.

Emmett Romine, vice president of customer solutions and innovation at Xcel, said this program is completely “voluntary” and that it ultimately “helps everybody.” Although the situation can be “a bit uncomfortable for a short period of time,” Romine says the program is “very, very helpful” in saving energy and making the system reliable for everyone.

The aforementioned “emergency” that warranted customers be locked out their thermostat controls was reportedly a combination of the hot weather, increased usage of air conditioning, and an outage in Pueblo.

In the Xcel’s six years of using the Rewards Program, this is the first time it took control away from the consumer. Normally, customers can override an “energy emergency” and continue using their thermostats as they please. One customer says that, despite the rarity of the situation, it didn’t feel right “to not be able to control our own thermostat in our house.”