The Massachusetts Department of Public Health coordinated with Google to install tracking apps and spyware on one million Android phones for the government’s COVID-19 contact tracing, a class-action lawsuit says.

The Massachusetts Department of Public Health (DPH) coordinated with Google to secretly install tracking apps on more than a million Android phones, a class-action lawsuit alleges. Google has allegedly been asked by the government to install spyware on cellphones as a method of contract tracking during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The New Civil Liberties Alliance (NCLA) started a legal action on Monday, which alleged that the Massachusetts Department of Public Health worked with Google in April 2021 to develop an app to track contacts on over a million mobile devices without the permission and knowledge of their owners.”

The lawsuit alleges that the mobile app was not downloaded voluntarily by very many people.

However, the Massachusetts Public Health Department is accused of working with Google to secretly automatically install COVID spyware on over a million phones without anyone’s knowledge or consent.

“To increase adoption, beginning June 15, 2021, DPH worked with Google to covertly install the contact tracing app on over one million Android mobile devices in Massachusetts without the knowledge or permission of device owners,” NCLA alleged in the lawsuit.

The NCL press release Explained: “DPH’s contact tracing app will not appear alongside other apps on the Android device’s home screen. The app can only be found by opening the ‘Settings’ and using the ‘Show all apps’ function.”

“According to the allegations in the lawsuit, the app causes an Android phone to constantly connect and exchange data with other nearby devices via Bluetooth and create a record of those connections.” Fox business reported. “This exchange process, the lawsuit explained, can provide DPH, Google and application developers with the time-stamped data stored in the individual’s Android phone.”

The lawsuit alleged that the app could obtain data from the mobile device, such as phone numbers, personal emails, places visited and movements.

The lawsuit alleges that if the smartphone owners deleted the app, the DPH “simply reinstalled it.”

Peggy Little, trial attorney for the NCLA, said: “The Massachusetts DPH, like any other government actor, is bound in its conduct by state constitutional and legal restrictions and is free from government interference with its privacy without its consent, reads.” like dystopian science fiction – and must be quickly declared invalid by the court.

NCLA trial attorney Sheng Li added: “Many states and other countries have successfully deployed contact tracing apps by obtaining consent from their citizens before downloading software onto their smartphones. Convincing the public to voluntarily adopt such apps may be difficult, but it is also necessary in a free society. The government cannot install covert surveillance devices on your personal property, even for a worthy cause, without a court order. For the same reason, it must not install any surveillance software on your smartphone without your knowledge and permission.”