South Dakota
SD’s prison tablet provider dinged for data breach by Federal Trade Commission • South Dakota Searchlight
The company that gave electronic tablets to South Dakota prison inmates under a contract with the state hid a 2020 data breach for nine months and then told only a fraction of affected users about it, according to a settlement filed in late February with the Federal Trade Commission.
The FTC’s decision and order in the data breach and fraud case against Global Tel Link (GTL) was issued on Feb. 27, two weeks before the South Dakota Department of Corrections suspended tablet-based phone calls and text messages for about 3,600 inmates.
That suspension is thought to have contributed to multiple nights of unrest last month at the penitentiary in Sioux Falls, including an assault that injured an employee. Attorney General Marty Jackley has said inmates involved will be prosecuted “to the fullest extent of the law.”
South Dakota Department of Corrections spokesman Michael Winder said via email that GTL did not inform the agency of any data breach. South Dakota Division of Criminal Investigation spokesman Tony Mangan said the Attorney General’s Consumer Protection Division has yet to hear from the company about the number of South Dakotans affected by the breach, if any.
Corrections: Search for contraband follows second night of unrest at Sioux Falls prison
It’s one of several legal issues faced by GTL (rebranded as ViaPath Technologies in 2022), which works with nearly 2,000 facilities across the U.S.
For years, critics have called the Virginia-based company’s business practices exploitative and called on the federal government to step in and regulate rates – something the FTC has worked on for phone calls, most recently with an interim rate cap last reviewed in September.
The tablet communication shutdown in South Dakota wasn’t announced publicly until March 20, when the DOC said it was the result of an investigation. Gov. Kristi Noem said inmates were using the GTL-provided devices for “nefarious” activities. The DOC has not responded to questions about whether tablet security was part of the problem.
One week after the DOC posted a memo on tablet restrictions to its website, media gathered outside the penitentiary on the first night of disturbances could hear inmates inside shouting “we want phones.” The following night, inmates could be heard yelling “we have rights” and “water.”
Family members had been unable to visit inmates on “the Hill,” the area of the prison where the incidents took place, until this week.
A Monday memo from the DOC, posted to its visitation page, says that in-person visits will commence for those inmates on Saturdays, Sundays and the third Friday of each month.
Since last week, inmates have been allowed to make up to five phone calls a day with 20-minute time limits, using either tablets or wall phones. Electronic messaging remains suspended.
Inmates and their families have bristled at the restrictions on tablet-based communications, and some have complained about frozen inmate accounts with unusable balances.
Advocates who argue for rate caps and regulation of communications providers say the issues in South Dakota and across the nation come as prisons have become more isolated places. During the COVID-19 pandemic, for example, many prisons and jails stopped allowing in-person visits in favor of video visitation.
“At the end of the day, the fact that people are being exploited and still would rather have the technologies than not have them just goes to show how bad prison life is,” said Wanda Bertram of the Prison Policy Initiative, a prison reform nonprofit based in Massachusetts.
Data security, financial practices scrutinized
South Dakota is far from alone in its use of private-company tablets for inmate communications, which typically double as correctional revenue engines. The state’s contract with GTL specifies commission rates for messaging and prepaid phone calls.
The South Dakota DOC charges less than the FTC’s interim 14-cent-per-minute cap for phone calls, but messaging services aren’t capped federally, and the state has collected revenue from both messaging and phone calls. Between 2021 and February, South Dakota collected at least $1.25 million in commission payments, according to data released to South Dakota Searchlight last month.
GTL has frequently been on the receiving end of political and legal scrutiny. In 2022, the company agreed to pay back $67 million to settle a class action lawsuit launched in U.S. District Court in Georgia over its practice of pocketing money from dormant inmate accounts.
Corrections has collected $1.25 million for calls, messages since 2021
Just last month, families in Michigan sued GTL and other communications providers, alleging they conspired with jailers to end in-person visits in favor of paid-for video visits.
The recent FTC action against the company involved a data breach in August 2020. The company and its subsidiaries had placed personally identifying and financial information into the Amazon Web Services cloud to test software. The FTC alleged in November that it did so without encrypting or otherwise protecting customer information, leaving information like the Social Security numbers, dates of birth and credit card information of inmate families and friends vulnerable to hacking.
That’s exactly what happened, according to the FTC’s complaint.
“As early as November 2020, (GTL) received multiple complaints from consumers stating that the consumers’ personally identifiable information obtained from Respondents had been located on the dark web,” the complaint reads.
By then, a data security blog called Comparitech had asked GTL subsidiary Telmate about the incident. Telmate told the blog the issue was resolved, and that no passwords or financial information had been exposed.
Those statements were false, the FTC said.
It took nine months for the company to inform individual users, and it only reached out to 45,000 of the approximately 650,000 people affected.
The FTC’s February order requires GTL to implement a host of security and consumer protection measures. Periodic third-party security assessments and reports back to the FTC on the results will be required for the next two decades.
The company will also need to inform all the impacted users – potentially including South Dakotans – that their personal information had been stored in an unsecure cloud computing environment later accessed by hackers, and to provide them with credit monitoring and identity protection services.
A spokesperson for the FTC said the agency does not have any information on whether the data of South Dakotans was part of the security breach or dark web data sales, referring South Dakota Searchlight to GTL for those answers.
GTL did not respond to an email on those questions.
Reform advocate: Prepaid communications a magnet for abuse
Inmates and their families are uniquely vulnerable to being squeezed by communication providers, according to Bertram of the Prison Policy Initiative.
Calls and messages to and from correctional institutions are tightly controlled, as they are subject to security screening by corrections officials and paid for under the terms of prison or jail contracts with providers that offer no choice on costs.
Tablets have become lifelines for people in prison and their families, Bertram said, particularly in the face of restrictions on other forms of communication. South Dakota shut down face-to-face visits for more than a year during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“In a lot of places, sending mail and visiting a loved one have become more difficult as prisons have imposed additional restrictions,” Bertram said. “And that has only increased the value and the importance to incarcerated people’s welfare that these tablets have.”
Talk of tablets, phone calls and pricing schemes are important for the general public, she said.
Research suggests that maintaining family connections translates into a lower likelihood of continued criminal behavior after release. One study in Minnesota found that inmates who had regular visits were 13% less likely to return to prison on new felony charges. Another study of female inmates across multiple states found that “familial telephone contact was most consistently associated with reduction in recidivism.”
High prices or strict limits can put financial stress on families who aim to stay connected, she said, which can have ripple effects across communities.
“You don’t have to find space in your heart to be compassionate for people who have committed crimes,” Bertram said. “But you do have to think about the implications for broader society when there’s companies that are allowed to run rampant and do what they will with incarcerated people’s money by turning them into a captive market.”
The Prison Policy Initiative recommends free calling and messaging for inmates. Absent that, the organization argues that prisons and jails should not collect commission. Removing the financial incentive for correctional institutions tends to lower prices.
Dallas, Texas, ceased to collect commissions and was able to negotiate lower prices, now charging a cent a minute for phone calls through its provider, Securus, a GTL competitor commonly known as JPay.
In Connecticut, the Legislature made calls free, and barred both commission collections for its prison system and forced video visitation. California followed suit with free audio calls from tablets and wall phones.
Dropping commission payments also prevents the misuse of funds, she said. In Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, an investigation by the news outlet PennLive revealed that the county spent nearly $300,000 in phone and messaging payouts between 2019 and 2021 to purchase gun range memberships for prison staff, the sheriff’s department, the district attorney’s criminal investigation division, and probation and parole.
Fulton County, Georgia, saw commission funds used to purchase thousands of honey-baked hams.
“You shouldn’t be charging incarcerated people and their families for these basic needs and then turning around collecting money off of that,” Bertram said.
Other models in use nationwide and in South Dakota
Bill Pope isn’t so sure that dropping commission payments is always the right call. Pope is the CEO of NCIC, a Texas-based GTL competitor offering tablets that give hour-for-hour entertainment credits to inmates who use them for coursework.
Pope pointed to California to explain why. That state offers free calls, and the state’s Public Utilities Commission opted to cap commission payments and set rates for prepaid calls in local jails at 7 cents a minute.
State will turn on tablet calls for inmates and raise daily limit from three to five
Pope said those moves “obliterated the inmate welfare fund” that had been propped up by payouts. That fund is meant to be “used for the benefit, education, and welfare of inmates of prisons and institutions.”
Many institutions simply want to offer the lowest possible price in a communications contract, Pope said, but others view the commission payments as reasonable ways to cover the expenses of monitoring calls and messages. The bigger problem is hidden fees, he said, like connection fees that some providers charge. Pope would like to see those regulated.
“Eliminating commissions can probably hurt the incarcerated users more than help them,” Pope said. “Unless, of course, the providers are overcharging.”
Pope says his company is the largest privately held communications provider in the U.S.
He sees his company’s approach to tablets as more beneficial for inmates, families and institutions. NCIC has contracts in South Dakota with jails in Yankton and Sioux Falls, among others. Its contract with the Minnehaha County Jail includes commission payments for the Sioux Falls facility, but inmates needn’t necessarily pay – at least for entertainment. Inmates can earn credits through coursework.
The NCIC contract charges 16 cents a minute for calls – more than double the rate listed for calls on the South Dakota DOC’s website – but Pope said the calls subsidize the entertainment that keeps inmates busy and would otherwise be paid for by their families.
“Do your homework, and then you can watch TV or play games,” Pope said.
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While the race to secure the nomination for governor has dominated the headlines ahead of the June 2 primary, Republican voters will also choose a candidate for one of South Dakota’s two U.S. Senate seats.
Incumbent U.S. Sen. Mike Rounds, who is seeking a third, six-year term, holds a comfortable lead over his GOP primary challenger, Justin McNeal, a Navy veteran and business owner from Rapid City, according to the latest poll from News Watch and the Chiesman Center for Democracy.
Here is a recap of the two candidates along with their thoughts heading into the June 2 election. The winner of the Republican primary will meet Democrat Julian Beaudion and Independent Brian Bengs in the Nov. 3 general election.
Hometown: Fort PierreAge: 71Occupation: Insurance broker; businessman; former governor (2003-2011); U.S. senator since 2015In their own words:
Rounds provided the following statement to News Watch:
“Working in the U.S. Senate, I’ve stayed focused on results that matter for our kids and grandkids. That means keeping the government off your back and out of your business and wallet. That means keeping our communities safe and creating a business climate that encourages job growth to keep our kids in South Dakota. And that means safety through a commitment to our men and women in uniform.
This past summer, we worked with President Trump to pass the Republicans’ Working Families Tax Cuts legislation. Without Congressional action, the average South Dakota family would have seen a $2,500 tax hike this year. Our legislation not only prevented the largest tax increase in American history, but it also provided additional tax relief for hard-working South Dakota families. That includes no tax on tips, no tax on overtime and no tax on Social Security for nearly 9 out of 10 seniors.
We’ve accomplished some great things, but our work is not done. I am running for reelection to continue bringing results back home to South Dakota.”
Hometown: Rapid City (born in Illinois and raised in Texas)Age: 42Occupation: Business owner (Dakota BioChar); Navy veteran (2001-2007)In their own words:
“I’m feeling the people in South Dakota are ready for a change. The challenge we are running into is that not enough people know who we are, but as soon as they know who we are, it’s an easy decision for them,” McNeal told News Watch in a phone interview. “I don’t have millions and millions of dollars. I’ve been largely self-funding this race up to this point.”
McNeal, who is a licensed pilot, said he has flown his small plane to events throughout the state in an attempt to get his name out.
“I talk to people about the issues that matter and I tell them the biggest thing you can do to help me is tell 10 people about me and to go vote June 2. We need about 50,000 votes to win the primary,” he said.
McNeal is not critical of Rounds and conceded “he is very popular” but said Rounds has not done enough to tackle the country’s growing fiscal deficit.
“I don’t think Mike is doing a bad job. I’m just concerned with the federal debt and the people that got us into that mess are not going to be the ones to get us out of it,” McNeal said.
“This is going to cripple the country. It just seems like politicians are focused on what they can bring to their home district or home state. And the problem with that is every member of Congress is doing the same thing, so everyone is taking and taking without making sure we can pay for it.”
South Dakota News Watch is an independent nonprofit. Read, donate and subscribe for free at sdnewswatch.org. Contact politics and statehouse reporter Alexander Rifaat: 605-736-4396/alexander.rifaat@sdnewswatch.org.
South Dakota
Supreme Court ruling robs Native Americans of ‘silent partner’ in legislative redistricting – ICT
This is the second installment in a four-part series profiling the four candidates seeking the GOP nomination for governor of South Dakota.
DELL RAPIDS, S.D. – The city of Dell Rapids, roughly 20 miles north of Sioux Falls, labels itself “The Little City with the Big Attractions.” And it’s here, in a relatively humble law office off the main road leading into town, News Watch met with one of its biggest current draws.
Over the past few weeks, state House Speaker Jon Hansen has enjoyed a growing prominence in the race to be the Republican nominee for governor.
After polling at just 2% when he initially announced his candidacy in April of last year, Hansen, who at 40 is the youngest in the race, now finds himself within striking distance of being one of the two candidates that could make a potential runoff.
In a poll commissioned by News Watch and the Chiesmen Center for Democracy last month, Hansen, a lawyer by training, drew 18% of support from potential GOP primary voters.
If no candidate receives at least 35% of the vote on June 2, the runoff will be held eight weeks later, on July 28. The winner of that contest will meet Democrat Dan Ahlers, also of Dell Rapids, in the Nov. 3 general election.
So what does Hansen put his steady rise in the race down to after spending the previous few months being viewed as the long shot candidate?
“The debates were a huge factor because people across South Dakota were able to line up those four candidates on the stage and take a measure and get a sense of who is honest and who is genuine,” Hansen told News Watch.
In a poll of viewers after the first GOP gubernatorial debate on KELO-TV in March, Hansen was seen as the winner, while observers were also left impressed by his performance in the second debate co-moderated by News Watch and SDPB.
“The more people have been able to line up the four candidates, the more they have been coming our direction,” Hansen said.
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In the same News Watch/Chiesman poll from last month, 27% of respondents did not know Hansen, which, some observers believe, could indicate he has the most potential of the four candidates to grow his support.
“A lot of people hadn’t heard of us and in large part, it’s never been about us. Karla and I have been fighting for the issues. We’re not big self-promoters,” Hansen said, referring to his running mate for lieutenant governor, Karla Lems.
From tragedy to political awakening
Hansen’s early childhood was marked by the death of his father, who died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Hansen describes the experience as “awful” but that it allowed him, his mother and his sister to grow closer.
“For awhile it was just my mom, my sister and I, and what really pulled us through that was the unconditional love we had for each other,” Hansen said.
His mother eventually remarried and they moved from Yankton, where he was born, to Dell Rapids, where he has lived for most of his adult life.
He said he had fond memories growing up in Dell Rapids, but he wasn’t the best of students. He also wasn’t interested in politics.
Hansen said that all changed when he got a job working at the local movie theater, where he befriended a female coworker involved in the pro-life movement.
“One day she brought up the issue of abortion and, after we had a bit of a back and forth, I told her. ‘I don’t get it. The baby doesn’t even know the baby exists. I don’t see what the big deal is?’ Then it got real quiet and I noticed that she started to cry. In that moment, I realized there was something I was missing,” Hansen said.
“I think a lot of people have those moments that get them engaged in the political process,” he said.
Hansen said the conversation not only awakened his desire to enter the political arena but that it also reconnected him to his Catholic faith.
He is married to his high school sweetheart, Sheila, and they have six children.
Hansen subsequently got involved in anti-abortion campaigns in 2006 and 2008, which didn’t turn out the way he wanted. In both years, South Dakota voters rejected initiatives that would have instituted a near-total ban on abortions.
“The pro-life side lost those fights, but it started the journey I’m on now.”
After completing an internship at the South Dakota Legislature during college, in 2010 Hansen successfully won an open seat in the state House against a Democratic opponent who, it turned out, was his high school government teacher.
“Believe me, he never saw it coming because I was not a good high school student,” Hansen joked.
Hansen served one term and, after his return to the Legislature in 2019, played a role in South Dakota eventually enacting an abortion ban in 2022. On the campaign trail, he has also touted his involvement in defeating Amendment G in 2024, which would have enshrined the right to an abortion in the state’s Constitution.
‘In the arena’
Hansen said his work on abortion underscores his ability to deliver for the conservative Republican agenda.
“I’ve not just talked. I’ve been in the arena fighting the fight on the issues,” Hansen said.
Besides abortion, Hansen also highlighted his work to lower property taxes, which has come under heavy scrutiny from one of his primary challengers, U.S. Rep. Dusty Johnson.
In recent weeks, Johnson has utilized his significant campaign war chest to attack Hansen’s role in the passage of a series of bills during this year’s legislative session that, in some fashion, lower property taxes in exchange for raising sales taxes.
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In particular, there is Senate Bill 245, which will create a property tax relief fund using money generated from the planned 0.3% sales tax increase set to take effect next year.
Former Gov. Kristi Noem enacted a law in 2023 that lowered the sales tax from 4.5% to 4.2% until 2027. Efforts to make the measure permanent were rejected in the state Senate.
Hansen said Johnson’s claims that Hansen has raised sales taxes are “disingenuous” and pointed out that, at least when it comes to the scheduled sales tax increase, it was a case of trying to make lemonade out of lemons.
“I just don’t think it’s appropriate for South Dakotans to give out tax breaks to some of the world’s richest tech companies. They want to come to South Dakota, they can pay taxes just like everyone else.”
– Republican gubernatorial candidate Jon Hansen
“We (the state House) wanted to make the cut permanent, but we didn’t have the votes in the Senate. Every year after, we tried to make that sales tax cut permanent and every year the Senate didn’t have the votes,” Hansen said. “So the reality is it was going up anyway.”
“The next best thing we could build a consensus around was take all that money, dollar for dollar, and put that towards property tax relief,” Hansen said, arguing that the break in property taxes will outweigh any rise in sales taxes.
Hansen said if he were to ascend to the top job in Pierre, he would focus on examining state finances to see where he could potentially cut more taxes.
“We’re going to look at our state budget and cut government spending and use that savings to provide more tax relief,” he said.
Hansen said he also wants to clean up what he sees as a culture of grift in Pierre that favors larger corporations over small businesses.
“It’s a breeding ground for corruption. You see it when people who sit on the Governor’s Office of Economic Development (GOED) board dole out money to certain companies then get executive jobs with those companies,” Hansen said, citing the recent example of CJ Schwan’s, a food manufacturer that hired a former GOED commissioner and received $69 million in state grants and loans.
“I don’t think it’s appropriate. It seems very Washington, D.C.-esque to me,” Hansen said.
Hansen’s hostility toward larger corporations is further illustrated by another piece of key legislation he passed in this past session.
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Along with Senate President Pro Tempore Chris Karr, Hansen passed Senate Bill 135, dubbed the Data Center Bill of Rights for Citizens, which puts certain restrictions in place for any future data center project.
He ruled out being open to providing data center companies any special tax privileges to operate in the state.
“I just don’t think it’s appropriate for South Dakotans to give out tax breaks to some of the world’s richest tech companies,” Hansen said. “They want to come to South Dakota, they can pay taxes just like everyone else.”
With the campaign entering the final stretch, what’s his strategy to win over voters before they vote?
“We’re going to continue being positive, share our vision of the state and show our track record of results,” Hansen said.
South Dakota News Watch is an independent nonprofit. Read, donate and subscribe for free at sdnewswatch.org. Contact politics and statehouse reporter Alexander Rifaat: 605-736-4396/alexander.rifaat@sdnewswatch.org.
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