From the U.S. Government Accountability Office, www.gao.gov

Transcript for: Smartphone Tracking Apps

Description: Audio interview by GAO staff with Mark Goldstein, Director,
Physical Infrastructure

Related GAO Work: GAO-16-317: Smartphone Data: Information and Issues 
Regarding Surreptitious Tracking Apps That Can Facilitate Stalking

Released: May 2016


[ Background Music ]

[ Narrator: ] Welcome to GAO's Watchdog Report, your source for news and
information from the U.S. Government Accountability Office. It's May
2016. A smartphone puts the Internet at your fingertips, anytime, and
anywhere. The flip side of this connectivity is that other people can
more easily track your location and even intercept your texts, e-mails,
and phone calls. Apps that allow others to track you have some
legitimate uses, but can also facilitate stalking. A team led by Mark
Goldstein, a director in GAO's Physical Infrastructure team, recently
looked into tracking apps and how to protect people's privacy. GAO's
Jacques Arsenault sat down with Mark to talk about what they found.

[ Jacques Arsenault: ] Now, I have a bunch of apps on my phone, but I
haven't heard much about tracking apps. What are they, and are they
available to just anyone?

[ Mark Goldstein: ] So, sure. A tracking app is just like any other app
that you can download onto your phone, and they have very legitimate
purposes. Most of them are used for parents to find out where their kids
are, and follow their kids around through their phone, or they can be
used by some companies to find their employees, particularly people who
are doing deliveries or maybe truckers, or people like that. Because the
GPS function in every phone has very important functions that we use all
the time for things like Google Maps, but are also used for all these
other kinds of things as well.

[ Jacques Arsenault: ] Sounds like there are some legitimate reasons,
but it also sounds a little concerning from a privacy perspective.

[ Mark Goldstein: ] That's correct. So many of the apps that are out
there, that we found, are used in both ways. They're used legitimately,
but many of them are also marketed for what's called surreptitious use,
or where you're not telling someone that you're using their phone to
track them, and this happens in a number of kinds of cases, for stalking
and for other kinds of nefarious purposes.

[ Jacques Arsenault: ] So if somebody were going to install one of these
apps on my phone, would they have to physically get to my phone to
install it, or is it something they could do remotely?

[ Mark Goldstein: ] In most cases, yes. There are some apps that will
allow you to do this through the cloud if you have the individual's ID
information to get into the cloud, but most of them require you to
physically load it onto the phone.

[ Jacques Arsenault: ] Now your team also found some safety concerns.
Can you talk about those?

[ Mark Goldstein: ] Yes. The biggest safety issue, of course, is if
somebody knows where you are, and they can stalk you, they can harm you.
It's not just a question of say, reading your e-mail or knowing who you
talk to on the phone or whether you went to the doctor. And there are
cases on the record where people have been harmed, and killed in fact,
because these apps have been used to locate people, cheating spouses,
things like that.

[ Jacques Arsenault: ] With all these concerns, I know these apps are
still pretty new, but are there any laws or restrictions concerning
selling or using the apps?

[ Mark Goldstein: ] There are a variety of laws on the books, both at
the federal level and at the state level that focus on different
components of whether you can sell them, whether or not individuals can
use them in a surreptitious manner. Things that range from the federal
wiretap laws to local stalking laws, you know, would prevent anyone from
stalking you, and as the report indicates, stalking is a very big
problem in the United States. Millions of people report being stalked
every year.

[ Jacques Arsenault: ] Are there other things that the federal
government is doing to protect our privacy and safety?

[ Mark Goldstein: ] There's a number of things that the government is
trying to do to ensure better privacy and safety with respect to these
kinds of apps. They include better education. The Department of Justice,
for instance, is actively working to improve coordination and education
to police forces, to victims services units across the country, where
people can get information about these kinds of things. So education is
one way. Enforcement, of course, both the Department of Justice as well
as the Federal Trade Commission have various statutes that they have
interpreted and which they enforce, both on the criminal and the civil
side, to try and prevent these things from happening and to penalize,
obviously, and prosecute people who break the law in these areas. And
then finally, there are some legislative remedies that they're trying to
put in place now, as well, that would probably help to improve how those
laws operate, and plug some of the gaps, as you mentioned, because this
is a relatively new area. Not all the laws that are on the books related
to either stalking or wiretap actually apply to your cell phone or
things like that, or in all cases, and so they're trying to smooth some
of that out as well.

[ Jacques Arsenault: ] Okay then, so before I think about turning my
phone off for a really long time, what would you say is the bottom line
of this report?

[ Mark Goldstein: ] I mean, the bottom line is really the technology
brings us costs as well as benefits. Clearly having a smartphone, having
the kind of computer we all now carry around in our pocket, has
revolutionized our daily life. But it doesn't always come without some
cost associated with it, and it can be abused. And so as individuals, we
have to be alert to that, and as a government, we have to ensure that
our citizens are able to use these kinds of devices without fear of
something bad happening.

[ Background Music ]

[ Narrator: ] To learn more, visit GAO.gov and be sure to tune in to the
next episode of GAO's Watchdog Report for more from the congressional
watchdog, the U.S. Government Accountability Office.