A newly released video highlights how the Massachusetts Department of Public Health (DPH) allegedly colluded with Google to secretly install Covid-tracking spyware on the smartphones of more than one million residents “without their knowledge or consent.”
A video published by the New Civil Liberties Alliance (NCLA) — a self-described civil rights group devoted to protecting Americans from administrative overreach — walks viewers through the core tenets of the organization’s ongoing lawsuit against DPH and Democrat Gov. Maura Healey, which claims Massachusetts violated state residents and workers’ Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights by installing a Covid “contact-tracing app” on their Androids without their awareness or permission.
According to NCLA’s legal complaint, DPH launched an initial version of the app for Android mobile devices in April 2021 using software provided to the agency by Google. At the time, the installation of the app — which purportedly causes the device “to constantly connect and exchange information with other nearby devices via Bluetooth” to alert individuals of possible exposure to Covid-19 — was voluntary. Following low download numbers among state residents, however, DPH allegedly began working with Google on June 15, 2021, to “secretly install the Contact Tracing App onto over one million Android mobile devices located in Massachusetts without the device owners’ knowledge or permission.”