“Tangles” is a tool that can be used to analyze activity on the Internet, social media and the dark web. The additional module “Webloc” enables access to people’s location data.
Interior Minister Gerhard Karner (ÖVP) APA / Roland Schlager
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The Ministry of the Interior may have extended the contract for the “Tangles” surveillance software and purchased the controversial additional module “Webloc”. This comes from an entry in one EUdatabase that the Greens have drawn attention to. Accordingly, at the end of May, the Ministry of the Interior concluded a two-year license agreement for the software solutions “Tangles Unlimited + Webloc & Webeye”.
“Tangles” is a tool that can be used to analyze activity on the Internet, social media and the dark web. It was also used by the US migration agency ICE, which was criticized for its raids. The additional module “Webloc” enables, among other things, access to people’s location data. The costs for the two-year contract are stated to be around 1.85 million euros.
The Greens criticize the use of the software and the Interior Minister’s information policy Gerhard Karner (ÖVP). “The Interior Ministry brushed us off for months, now we have confirmation in black and white,” said the Green Party’s internet policy spokesman. Suleyman Zorbain a broadcast.
He is particularly critical of the possible use of “Webloc”. The software receives location data via advertising trackers that are in cell phone apps. “Even if only a single person is being investigated, the data of thousands of bystanders is collected, linked and evaluated. This is no longer a targeted investigative tool, but a structural expansion of state surveillance without effective control,” said Zorba.
There was already an entry in the EU database mentioned at the end of 2024. At that time it was about 847,000 euros and it was not clear whether the Austrian security authorities could also use other modules in addition to “Tangles”. Unlike the most recent entry, it was specified at the time that, in addition to an “admin user”, ten accesses to the software were included in the price.
A parliamentary question submitted by Zorba to Karner in February was left unanswered with reference to the “essential external and internal security interests of the Republic of Austria”. The Interior Department referred to the secretly meeting “Standing Subcommittee of the Committee on Internal Affairs” in Parliament. The ministry also referred to this to the APA at the beginning of the year. The response to a renewed request on Friday is still pending.
“Tangles” is operated by the US company Penlink. The software was developed by the Israeli company Cobwebs, which was taken over in 2023 and merged with Penlink. In 2021, the Facebook group Meta announced that it had deleted 200 accounts that were associated with Cobwebs. In addition to collecting information about targets, “the accounts operated by Cobwebs customers also used social engineering methods to gain access to closed communities and forums and trick people into disclosing personal information,” Meta Group wrote at the time. (APA)
