Last updated on November 24, 2020
With the protests and riots happening around the country this week, a controversial surveillance tool has again taken center stage. Known commonly as “stingrays,” these devices essentially impersonate cell phone towers and send out signals to fool cell phones in the area into transmitting their locations and identifying information. According to the ACLU they can also collect information from the phones of many bystanders who happen to be nearby.
- Here Are The Minneapolis Police’s Tools To Identify Protesters [Buzzfeed] “For instance, the Minnesota BCA has the ability to deploy Stingrays, a tool that mimics cellphone towers in order to approximate the location of cellphone users. Stingrays have allegedly been used to target Black Lives Matter protesters.”
- ICE used ‘stingray’ cell phone snooping tech hundreds of times since 2017 [TechCrunch] “Although the numbers offer a rare insight into how often ICE uses this secretive and controversial technology, the documents don’t say how many Americans also had their phones inadvertently ensnared by these surveillance devices.”
- You Can Easily Get Into Anybody’s Smartphone with this Tool [Tech Times] “The technology is easy to master, cheap, and most of all – accessible. In fact, we have come to a point where almost anyone with a few bucks and hours to spare can hack another person’s phone. “
- ACLU sues Homeland Security over ‘stingray’ cell phone surveillance [TechCrunch] “But little else is known about stingray technology because the cell phone snooping technology is sold exclusively to police departments and federal agencies under strict non-disclosure agreements with the device manufacturer.”
From the Ohio Web Library:
- StingRay surveillance devices found near the White House (Lester Holt, & Andrea Canning. (n.d.). StingRay surveillance devices found near the White House. CBS Evening News with Katie Couric.)
- Resisting geosurveillance: A survey of tactics and strategies for spatial privacy (Swanlund, D., & Schuurman, N. (2019). Resisting geosurveillance: A survey of tactics and strategies for spatial privacy. Progress in Human Geography, 43(4), 596–610.)
- Everything to know about ‘Stingray’ (Kate Allen Science & Toronto Star. (2019, April 7). Everything to know about “Stingray.” Toronto Star (Canada).)
