When Your Freedom Depends on an App

guest · Apr 28, 2020

When Your Freedom Depends on an App
Parolees Are Being Forced To Download Telmate's Guardian App That Listens and Records Every Move
April 27, 2020
https://gizmodo.com/when-your-freedom-depends-on-an-app-1843109198

On the day Layla got out of prison and back to her home in Georgia, she was told she would need to purchase a smartphone—not an insignificant task for someone who’d just completed a sentence, but Layla was lucky to have a friend who could buy one for her.

The app Layla was forced to download upon her release, Guardian, is part of the latest wave of surveillance technologies utilized by enforcement agencies to monitor the recently incarcerated or those awaiting trial. Launched in 2015, it’s marketed as a way for agencies to cut down costs and take advantage of the existing tracking technology in smartphones for more seamless and convenient parole.

According to federal spending records, at least 10 cities have contracts to use Guardian for “re-entry” services, and it has been downloaded up to 50,000 times, according to data from the app analytics firm App Figures.
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But Gizmodo spoke to parolees who have recently used the app who report devastating results. Like Layla, all asked to be identified by a pseudonym or remain anonymous, concerned that speaking to the press could impact the terms of the releases they were trying so hard to keep intact.

They say the app is faulty to the point of being unusable, inaccurately reporting their locations, failing to recognize the biometric data it relies on, and asking them to check in so often it makes daily life nearly impossible.
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These reports are corroborated by a review of the Android version of the app’s underlying architecture and conversations with security experts, who call the app’s code “sloppy” and “irresponsible” and its default privacy settings wildly invasive, asking for “excessive permissions” to access device data, among other issues.

But in Guardian’s case, this “sloppy” code is governing people’s entire lives, dictating their options as they attempt the already difficult process of reintegrating after incarceration. The potential privacy violations carry darker implications.
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The further use of mobile applications in the criminal justice system seems inevitable, and a handful of companies have launched products in recent years, developing their own versions of ankle monitors that live in parolees’ phones.

But the rise of smartphone technology developed to replace older forms of supervised release monitoring brings with it a new set of problems: Phones are deeply personal objects, full of sensitive private information, and the capacity for near-total surveillance is built right into the device.

“These guys I know, they spend 43 years in prison, and then all of a sudden he’s asked to buy a smartphone—how’s he supposed to do that?”
[...] There’s a whole range of situations where this breaks your spirit. It’s a constant reminder that you are in control of the state.”
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