Lawsuit Claims Massachusetts Government Worked With Google to Secretly Install ‘Spyware’ Onto 1 Million Phones

The Massachusetts Department of Public Health (DPH) faces a class-action lawsuit for allegedly using Google technology to covertly install tracking apps on over one million Android phones.

“In a lawsuit filed Tuesday, the New Civil Liberties Alliance (NCLA), a nonpartisan civil rights firm, accused the Bay State’s health department of ‘brazen disregard for civil liberties’ by installing ‘spyware that deliberately tracks and records movement and personal contacts onto over a million mobile devices without their owners’ permission and awareness,'” Fox Business reports.

Your smartphone could be spying on you. 👀

NCLA has filed a class-action lawsuit against the Massachusetts Department of Public Health for working with Google to auto-install Covid tracing spyware on the phones of over one million residents. https://t.co/5t6P73g4t9 pic.twitter.com/HndBca7CtT

— New Civil Liberties Alliance (@NCLAlegal) November 16, 2022

The Massachusetts Department of Public Health worked with Google to secretly install a Covid Tracing App onto over 1 million Android mobile devices without the device owners’ knowledge or permission.

Read about NCLA's new lawsuit @FoxBusiness: https://t.co/WFL8mA6Z9O

— New Civil Liberties Alliance (@NCLAlegal) November 17, 2022

From NCLA:

The Massachusetts Department of Public Health (DPH) worked with Google to auto-install spyware on the smartphones of more than one million Commonwealth residents, without their knowledge or consent, in a misguided effort to combat Covid-19. Such brazen disregard for civil liberties violates the United States and Massachusetts Constitutions and cannot stand. The New Civil Liberties Alliance, a nonpartisan, nonprofit civil rights group, has filed a class-action lawsuit, Wright v. Massachusetts Department of Public Health, et al., challenging DPH’s covert installation of a Covid tracing app that tracks and records the movement and personal contacts of Android mobile device users without owners’ permission or awareness.

Plaintiffs Robert Wright and Johnny Kula own and use Android mobile devices and live or work in Massachusetts. Since June 15, 2021, DPH has worked with Google to secretly install the app onto over one million Android mobile devices located in Massachusetts without obtaining any search warrants, in violation of the device owners’ constitutional and common-law rights to privacy and property. Plaintiffs have constitutionally protected liberty interests in not having their whereabouts and contacts surveilled, recorded, and broadcasted, and in preventing unauthorized and unconsented access to their personal smartphones by government agencies.

Once “automatically installed,” DPH’s contact tracing app does not appear alongside other apps on the Android device’s home screen. The app can be found only by opening “settings” and using the “view all apps” feature. Thus, the typical device owner remains unaware of its presence. DPH apparently decided to secretly install the contact tracing app onto over one million Android devices because few Massachusetts citizens were downloading its initial version, which required voluntary adoption. DPH decided to mass-install the app without device owners’ knowledge or consent. When smartphone owners delete the app, DPH simply re-installs it. Plaintiffs’ class-action lawsuit contains nine counts against DPH, including violations of their Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights under the U.S. Constitution, and violations of Articles X and XIV of the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights.

No statutory authority supports DPH’s conduct, which serves no public health purpose, especially since Massachusetts has ended its statewide contact-tracing program. No law or regulation authorizes DPH to secretly install any type of software—let alone what amounts to spyware designed specifically to obtain private location and health information—onto the Android devices of Massachusetts residents. The U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts should grant injunctive relief, along with nominal damages, to the class. NCLA is unaware at this time of other states that engaged in a similar surreptitious strategy of auto-installing contact-tracing apps. It appears Massachusetts iPhone users had to consent before a similar app installed on their devices.

Cont. from Fox Business:

According to NCLA, DPH worked with Google to develop a contract tracing app, which in April 2021 became available for Massachusetts residents to download voluntarily. Few residents opted to use the app, according to the suit.

“To increase adoption, starting on June 15, 2021, DPH worked with Google to secretly install the Contact Tracing App onto over one million Android mobile devices located in Massachusetts without the device owners’ knowledge or permission,” NCLA claimed in the lawsuit. The filing alleged that when some Android device owners discovered and subsequently deleted the app, DPH would re-install it onto their devices.

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According to the claims in the lawsuit, the app causes an Android cellphone to constantly connect and exchange data with other nearby devices via Bluetooth and create a record of those connections. This exchange process, the lawsuit explained, can make the time-stamped, stored data in person’s Android phone available to DPH, Google and application developers.

That data could include phone numbers and personal emails, the suit said.

“Those with access to the system logs can also use time stamped data… to determine the owner’s past contacts, locations and movement,” it said. The lawsuit said plaintiffs believe the “spyware still exists on the overwhelming majority of the devices on which it was installed.”

NCLA said that while at least two dozen other states developed COVID contact-tracing apps using Google technology, those states engaged in community outreach and encouraged their residents to voluntarily download and use the app.

“Massachusetts, however, is the only State to surreptitiously embed the Contact Tracing App on mobile devices that DPH locates within its borders, without obtaining the owners’ knowledge or consent,” NCLA claimed in the lawsuit.

Andrew Beckwith, attorney and president of a conservative grassroots group, Massachusetts Family Institute, told Fox News Digital the actions by DPH outlined in the lawsuit are “yet another example of government bureaucrats using the COVID hysteria to run roughshod over clear Constitution rights.”