The news signifies an abuse of data by a government contractor, with Banjo going far beyond what companies which scrape social networks usually do. Banjo created a secret company named Pink Unicorn Labs, according to three former Banjo employees, with two of them adding that the company developed the apps. This was done to avoid detection by social networks, two of the former employees said.

Banjo, an artificial intelligence firm that works with police used a shadow company to create an array of Android and iOS apps that looked innocuous but were specifically designed to secretly scrape social media, Motherboard has learned.

Three of the apps created by Pink Unicorn Labs were called "One Direction Fan App," "EDM Fan App," and "Formula Racing App." Motherboard found these three apps on archive sites and downloaded and analyzed them, as did an independent expert. The apps—which appear to have been originally compiled in 2015 and were on the Play Store until 2016 according to Google—outwardly had no connection to Banjo, but an analysis of its code indicates connections to the company. This aspect of Banjo's operation has some similarities with the Cambridge Analytica scandal, with multiple sources comparing the two incidents.

"Banjo was doing exactly the same thing but more nefariously, arguably," a former Banjo employee said, referring to how seemingly unrelated apps were helping to feed the activities of the company's main business. Motherboard granted four former employees and another source close to the company anonymity because they had signed non-disclosure agreements with Banjo.

Do you work at Banjo or know anything else about the company’s work? Do you know about any other apps that abused data access? We’d love to hear from you. Using a non-work phone or computer, you can contact Jason Koebler securely on Signal on +1 202 505 1702 , or Joseph Cox on Signal on +44 20 8133 5190 , Wickr on josephcox, OTR chat on jfcox@jabber.ccc.de , or email _joseph.cox@vice.com_**.**

Last year Banjo signed a $20.7 million contract with Utah that granted the company access to the state's traffic, CCTV, and public safety cameras. Banjo promises to combine that input with a range of other data such as satellites and social media posts to create a system that it claims alerts law enforcement of crimes or events in real-time.