Mobile apps track users and sell data
The Weather Channel, an application indirectly owned by IBM, promises users that by sharing their location data with it, they will receive personalized local weather forecasts. So, tempted by various details, we give away our valuable data, not understanding who can get it and how it can be used.
Mobile phone apps collect detailed location data from users at every turn. They monitor traffic on motorways, pedestrians on the streets, and two-wheelers on bike paths. They see every move of the smartphone owner, who most often considers himself completely anonymous, even if he shares his location. Applications not only collect information about geolocation, but also sell this data without our knowledge.
We know where you walk your dog
The New York Times recently conducted an experiment to track the movements of Lisa Magrin, an ordinary teacher from outside New York. Journalists have proven that, knowing her phone number, you can trace all the trips around the area that she makes every day. And while Magrine's identity was not listed in the location data, it was relatively easy to link her to the displacement grid by doing some additional searching.
In four months of geolocation records viewed by The New York Times, the location of the heroine of the report was recorded on the network more than 8600 times - an average of once every 21 minutes. The app followed her as she walked to a weight management meeting and to a dermatologist's office for minor surgery. The course of her walk with the dog and visiting her ex-girlfriend's house were clearly visible. Of course, her daily commute from home to school was a sign of her profession. His location in the school has been logged over 800 times, often with a specific grade. Magrin's location data also shows other frequently visited places, including the gym and the aforementioned Weight Watchers. From the location data alone, a fairly detailed profile of an unmarried middle-aged woman with overweight and some health problems is created. That's probably a lot, if only for ad planners.
The origins of mobile location methods are closely linked to the advertising industry's efforts to customize apps and advertise companies where the user of the device is nearby. Over time, it has evolved into a machine for collecting and analyzing large amounts of valuable data. As writes the edition, in the USA data on this type of gas arrive at least in 75 companies. Some say they track up to 200 million mobile devices in the United States, or about half of the devices in use in that country. The database being reviewed by NYT — a sample of information collected in 2017 and owned by a single company — reveals the movements of people in an astonishing level of detail, accurate to a few meters, and in some cases updated more than 14 times a day.
Travel map of Lisa Magrin
These companies sell, use, or analyze data to meet the needs of advertisers, retail outlets, and even financial institutions seeking insight into consumer behavior. The geo-targeted advertising market is already worth over $20 billion a year. This business includes the largest. Like the aforementioned IBM that bought the weather app. The once curious and rather popular social network Foursquare has turned into a geo-marketing company. Big investors in the new offices include Goldman Sachs and Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal.
Industry representatives also say they are interested in movement and location patterns, not individual consumer identities. They emphasize that the data collected by the apps is not associated with a specific name or phone number. However, those with access to these databases, including company employees or customers, can identify people relatively easily without their consent. For example, you can follow a friend by entering a phone number. Based on the address at which this person regularly spends and sleeps, it is easy to find out the exact address of a particular person.
Lawyers fish in an ambulance
Many localization companies say that when phone users allow their location to be shared by setting up their device, the game is fair. However, it is known that when users are asked for authorization, this is often accompanied by incomplete or misleading information. For example, an app might tell the user that sharing their location will help them get traffic information, but not mention that their own data will be shared and sold. This disclosure is often hidden in an unreadable privacy policy that almost no one reads.
A bank, fund investors, or other financial institutions may use these methods for a form of economic espionage, such as making credit or investment decisions based on them before the company releases official earnings reports. Much can be said from such trivial information as the increase or decrease in the number of people on the factory floor or visiting stores. Location data in medical facilities is very attractive in terms of advertising. For example, Tell All Digital, a Long Island advertising company that is a geolocation client, says it runs ad campaigns for personal injury attorneys by anonymously targeting emergency rooms.
According to MightySignal in 2018, a huge number of popular applications contain localization code that is used by different companies. A study of the Google Android platform shows that there are about 1200 such programs, and 200 on Apple iOS.
NYT has tested twenty of these applications. It turned out that 17 of them send data with accurate latitude and longitude to about 70 companies. 40 companies get accurate geolocation data from just one WeatherBug app for iOS. At the same time, many of these subjects, when asked by journalists about such data, call them “unnecessary” or “inadequate”. Companies using location data claim that people agree to share their information in exchange for personalized services, rewards and discounts. There is some truth in this, because Ms. Magrin herself, the main character of the report, explained that she is not against tracking, which allows her to record running routes (perhaps she does not know that many equal people and companies can get to know these routes).
While dominating the mobile advertising market, Google and Facebook are also leaders in location-based advertising. They collect data from their own applications. They guarantee that they do not sell this data to third parties, but keep it to themselves in order to better personalize their services, sell location-based advertising, and monitor whether advertising leads to sales in physical stores. Google said it is changing this data to be less accurate.
Apple and Google have recently taken steps to reduce the collection of location data by apps in their stores. For example, in the latest version of Android, apps can collect geolocation "several times per hour" instead of the nearly continuous one it used to be. Apple is a bit more strict, requiring apps to justify collecting location information in messages displayed to the user. However, Apple's instructions for developers do not say anything about advertising or selling data. Through a representative, the company guarantees that the developers use the data only to provide services directly related to the application or to display advertising in accordance with Apple's recommendations.
Business is growing, and location data collection will become increasingly difficult to avoid. Some services without such data cannot exist at all. Augmented reality is also largely based on them. It is important that users are aware of the extent to which they are being tracked, so that they can decide for themselves whether to share the location.
