Former U.S. intelligence contractor and renowned whistleblower, Edward Snowden, has condemned Alphabet Inc.’s (NASDAQ:AAPL) in the wake of accusations that the tech giants have been sharing push notification data with the Department of Justice.
What Happened: Over the weekend, Snowden responded to a post that shared the letter Senator Ron Wyden wrote to the DOJ, asking the department to allow Google and Apple to inform their customers and the general public about “demands for smartphone app notification records.”
Snowden said that the government’s interest in Google and Apple’s data collection wasn’t merely an act of surveillance on the companies themselves but a direct invasion of individuals’ privacy.
He went on to critique the tech giants and questioned why they hadn’t taken measures to blind themselves to such intrusive data collection, pointing out the inherent privacy risks in their design.
“Now ask yourself: why haven’t Apple/Google begun blinding themselves to this data? This is privacy-hostile design,” he said.
