GOOG Alphabet Inc

By John D. McKinnon 

House lawmakers are demanding information from Alphabet Inc. and Apple Inc. about how the companies handle users' personal information, including spoken words, email content and location data.

In letters to the companies' CEOs, leaders of the powerful House Energy and Commerce Committee said recent media reports and related information obtained by the panel have raised questions about how the companies gather and use consumers' information.

The letters show that consumer-privacy concerns in Washington have spread beyond Facebook Inc., which has been in regulators' and lawmakers' crosshairs this past year over the sharing of user information with a data-analytics firm that had ties to the Donald Trump presidential campaign.

The lawmakers' letter to Alphabet CEO Larry Page said recent reports indicate that its Android smartphone operating system collects extensive user-location data and reports it back to Alphabet's Google unit even when location services are disabled.

Considering that many consumers likely believe that their phones aren't actively tracking them when the location services are turned off, "this alleged behavior is troubling," according to the letter, which was signed by the committee's chairman, Greg Walden (R., Ore.), as well as three subcommittee chairmen, Reps. Gregg Harper (R., Miss.), Marsha Blackburn (R., Tenn.) and Robert Latta (R., Ohio).

The letter to Alphabet also raised questions concerning a report last week in The Wall Street Journal that Google continues to allow third parties to access content of users' emails, even though the company itself said last year it would halt scanning the contents of emails to "keep privacy and security paramount."

The lawmakers' letter to Apple CEO Tim Cook raised fewer issues, but posed similar questions about whether Apple smartphones collect and transmit extensive location data. The letter says that Apple's actions "raise questions about how Apple device users' data is protected and when it is shared and compiled," given that Apple provides access to apps that appear contradictory to its own privacy principles, the letter says.

Both letters also noted that some recent media reports have suggested that smartphones in general can and sometimes do collect extensive audio data that can be accessed by third parties, even when users might not be talking to the phone's virtual assistant.

Google said in a statement on Monday: "Protecting our users' privacy and securing their information is of the utmost importance to Google. We look forward to answering the committee's questions."

Apple declined to comment. The company provides information on its data practices online that answer some of the questions.

The letters go on to seek detailed information about the companies' practices, particularly when it comes to tracking users' locations, collecting audio data from users' conversations and sharing their data with third parties, such as app developers.

The letters to both firms ask whether their devices "have the capability to listen to consumers" even when the user isn't engaging a virtual assistant. If so, lawmakers want to know how that data is being used.

The letters ask whether the firms could control or limit the data collected by third-party apps available on their devices.

Congress also is asking Google for "a comprehensive list of the companies with access to a user's email contents on Gmail," as well as details about what restrictions it places on the use of email data by app makers.

Hundreds of app developers scan the inboxes of millions of Gmail users who signed up for email-based services, commonly using free apps and services to hook users into giving up access to their inboxes without clearly stating what data they collect and what they are doing with it, current and former employees of these companies told The Journal.

In a Google blog post last week, the company said: "Transparency and control have always been core data privacy principles, and we're constantly working to ensure these principles are reflected in our products."

Apple says it has aimed to protect user privacy by encrypting some sensitive information such as iMessages and randomizing other information it gathers such as map navigation so that it can't be linked to an individual's device.

In an aim to bolster user privacy, the company last month issued new rules for apps available on its App Store, saying apps that access users' photos and contact lists can't use that information to build databases. However, the new rules also raised concerns that the company's previous policies contained loopholes allowing apps to collect and resell sensitive information such as photo locations, privacy advocates say.

Agencies including the Federal Trade Commission already are investigating Facebook, and some privacy groups have called for other technology companies' practices to be probed as well.

The letters also dial up pressure on major tech firms to tell lawmakers and the public more about their privacy practices.

The Energy and Commerce Committee has been urging other firms to send their CEOs to testify at a hearing about their practices. But so far, no hearing has been scheduled.

The letters mark the first time the committee has queried companies besides Facebook concerning specific consumer-privacy issues. The committee has been looking more broadly at other topics, including the use of algorithms for a number of services such as content sharing.

Write to John D. McKinnon at john.mckinnon@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

July 09, 2018 18:09 ET (22:09 GMT)

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