back to article Anonymized location-tracking data proves anything but: Apps squeal on you like crazy

Anonymized location data won't necessarily preserve your anonymity. M. Keith Chen, associate professor of economics at UCLA's Anderson School of Management, and Ryne Rohla, a doctoral student at Washington State University, accomplished this minor miracle of data science by assuming that the GPS coordinates transmitted by …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Disable GPS...

    Of course Google drove the world and slurped all the wifi access points then gave your phone spying powers to report your connection info back to the US, so still no real privacy then.

    1. Gene Cash Silver badge

      Re: Disable GPS...

      I've also discovered it has the side effect of massively increasing battery time too. Bonus!

    2. DainB Bronze badge

      Re: Disable GPS...

      Won't help, Google still has access to your location via cell towers data and it is surprisingly accurate outside of high density residential areas.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    But...

    Safegraph tracks the location of 10 million Americans' phones, according to the researchers, who used the company's dataset of 17 billion location pings collected in November 2016 to infer the residences of 5 million individuals.

    Don't you really mean 'The Man' tracks the location...

    This sort of data is just what the FEDs and other TLA's need.

    Normally at home snoozing at 1am? Hey, this phone is moving from its alotted location and has stopped outside the Bank.

    Better send in SWAT, this guy is obviously going to rob the bank. We had better stop him.

    We will soon be ruled by incompetant A.I. (if not already)

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: But...

      A clever criminal would use this type of thing against the authorities.

      Let's say you hide your phone in the bushes outside a diner while committing a crime, and if arrested use discovery to find out if the prosecution had sought mobile phone records. If they have, introduce them in court saying "the prosecution hoped to use my phone records to tie me to the scene of the crime but when they found out I was elsewhere decided to keep quiet", then sit back and watch the jury set you free.

      Just make sure you go there for real a few nights around the same time so they'll remember you, and always pay cash in a memorable way (like leaving a $20 bill for a $8 tab every time)

      1. Hollerithevo

        Re: But...

        @DougS, thanks for the tip!

      2. MachDiamond Silver badge

        Re: But...

        "Let's say you hide your phone in the bushes outside a diner while committing a crime, and if arrested use discovery to find out if the prosecution had sought mobile phone records."

        You also want to find a diner that doesn't have CCTV (if there are any left) or they might want to look at that to see if you were there.

        I find it hilarious that criminals carry a phone that is registered to them on "jobs" and not a burner that they just trash periodically.

        I keep my data off unless I'm actively using it. I don't find any reason to leave it on. I also don't load up on every cute app that comes along. I have about 10 that I use all of the time and that's it. If I suspect that any of them are doing something I don't want them to do, they get replaced.

      3. a_yank_lurker

        Re: But...

        @DougS - There are a couple of weaknesses the suggestion. One most criminals are not very bright and definitely not tech savvy. The planning skills required are beyond their capabilities; way many get caught in the first place. Second, the analysis covered several weeks so a couple of nights not at home would be ignored by someone smart enough (assuming the flatfeet flunkies in the doughnut shop have enough brains to understand this).

        1. Danny 2

          Re: But...

          Indeed. Police still check for fingerprints because most criminals don't wear gloves despite knowing about fingerprint evidence.

          I was part of a peace group that got arrested trying to break in to a military base, and in the debrief afterwards the organiser again stressed the need to leave mobile phones at home. Just then one of the protestors phones rang, and they took the call. And then the paranoid morons put our arrest down to an infiltrator, rather than the blindingly obvious phone mast in the base.

    2. Rich 11

      Re: But...

      We will soon be ruled by incompetant A.I. (if not already)

      An incompetent AI could hardly do any worse than the incompetent humans who already rule us.

    3. Someone Else Silver badge
      Coat

      Re: But...

      We will soon be ruled by incompetant A.I. (if not already)

      Artificial Incompetence?

  3. Whitter
    Mushroom

    company downplays the value of ... "mobile location exhaust data"

    Anyone else immediately think of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek_VI:_The_Undiscovered_Country#Plot

    ... Spock and McCoy modify a photon torpedo to home in on the exhaust emissions of Chang's vessel...

    Icon for the end result (rather than a youtube url)

  4. Chris G

    If you're not doing anything wrong

    How do you know what's wrong and what can get you into trouble? Possibly at a later date when an innocent night out puts you in a place that turns out to be evidence against you.

    An example; I passed by the Old Bailey a few minutes before the IRA bomb went off there, if they had had this kind if tracking in those days maybe they could have placed me there and accuse me of placing the bomb.

    1. MachDiamond Silver badge

      Re: If you're not doing anything wrong

      "An example; I passed by the Old Bailey a few minutes before the IRA bomb went off there, if they had had this kind if tracking in those days maybe they could have placed me there and accuse me of placing the bomb."

      Read "Little Brother" by Cory Doctorow. The story has some great examples of data harvesting gone bad. The data looked at one way makes the person look like a terrorist and looked at another way shows that the person is a university professor that consults for industry on the side. The difference is that government commandos prefer the former interpretation.

  5. cbars Bronze badge

    Don't worry

    UK Gov has made it illegal to de-anonymise (re-identify) data in the new Data Protection Bill (part 6, 162)

    So we're all safe and privacy is assured :)

    So all you need to do is mark your data dumps "this is anonymous data" and put the real names/device IDs into a separate file linked with a 'random' number so no human could ever join the dots - and you're good to go. The law will protect us!

    1. Graham Cobb Silver badge

      Re: Don't worry

      To be fair, laws like this are important and do help with the many commercially-oriented concerns (most big consumer companies do not like to be caught out systematically breaking laws). So, this law is important to stop, for example, insurance companies de-anonymising data to drive health insurance premiums.

      Of course, the law needs to be well-drafted, and include serious penalties for commercial infringement, while also protecting research. None of those apply in this case, unfortunately.

    2. Tom 38

      Re: Don't worry

      Apologies cbars, apparently some people need sarcasm pointed out to them.

      1. cbars Bronze badge
        Pint

        Re: Don't worry

        Cheers Tom 38!

        Graham Cobb:

        I actually approve of the law, and I'm glad there are laws that make burglary illegal, but I will still take steps to secure my home. It's not the law abiding people/companies I'm worried about!

        My point was that if the data exists, and is available, we're fucked either way. The kind of people I'm thinking about are the scam artists that can use this data to fool people into handing over more information by identifying them (yes, illegally).

        Your points stand, about research and insurance (what was that NHS eData thingy....?) and the like, but really we also want people to stop storing all this shit and definitely not to sell it around as if it's safe to do so without revealing intimate details of the subjects.

        Lots of points on this one, too many for my flippant forum comments, if I bump into you in a pub I'll be happy to natter on for hours and not solve anything. Speaking of, it's Friday :)

  6. JohnFen

    No such thing as "anonymized" data

    "Anonymized" data was always an obvious lie. However, Big Data destroys even what little whiff of anonymity may have previously existed. Personally, whenever I see a product or service claim that the data they gather about me is "anonymous", I immediately view the company as a pack of liars and avoid giving them any data at all, to the best of my ability.

  7. MachDiamond Silver badge

    The Clancy method

    The early Tom Clancy novels, the ones he wrote himself, contain great insights into the intelligence world. Once you get into the mindset it's so easy to glean all sorts of information from what seems on the surface to be innocuous data. People that believe they have nothing to hide so don't take personal information security seriously take a course in intelligence gathering.

    If a phone sits someplace routinely all night someplace without outgoing use, that's probably where the owner lives. If the phone sits all morning, moves and they comes back and sits all afternoon, that's probably where they work. Correlate that with just a little bit more tid bits and it's not hard to put a name with the data. Lives on 123 Main St., works at 456 Second street (Acme Widgets), spends sunday Mornings at Our Lady of Random Effects and afternoons at 789 Elm st (Mr and Mrs John Doe). Pretty soon the list of likely people is 99.9% James Doe, 23, Single, no kids, ……. The more names that a database has associated with address like from public phone listings the faster a program can create a narrow statistical probability.

    Anonymity is getting harder to achieve. It takes a lot of money and the ability to live and work using only cash and no technology. The best defense is to use cash as much as possible, not use "social media" and rewards programs that are there to harvest data and lie randomly when asked for information that isn't relevant or important to the requester. Obviously, it's not a good idea to lie to the police, they have highly tuned BS detectors and will find out quickly if you aren't giving them good information. If a shop wants your phone number and address when you make a purchase, give them the local trading standards information and the stupid spammers might step into the trap.

    1. a_yank_lurker

      Re: The Clancy method

      A variation of this method has used to break alibis in murder cases. If you know the person's phone number with the reasonable assumption they normally have it with them or in easy reach then you can track their location at least approximately just by the cell towers. If the suspect claims they were at home on the night of the murder but the phone is known to be in area and at the approximate time of the murder even the dimmest flatfoot can work out you have some serious explaining to do. I have heard of this technique being used several years ago to aid in solving several murders over here. Now add finer location determination via GPS, if the flatfeet can get their hands on it, you will have a harder time getting off. Google Maps on Android phones is very good at getting one's location with a few feet of the actual location. I assume Apple Maps has similar accuracy. Thus, as long as you have a phone, your location is known to someone at all times. The only privacy hope (faint one) is the data collectors don't keep the data for any length of time.

    2. Muscleguy

      Re: The Clancy method

      Depends where you shop. If it is somewhere the trade also shops then they need the info for VAT reporting. Even if you are buying privately and paying it upfront.

  8. ThatOne Silver badge

    The obvious solution is to turn your cell phone off if you don't need it. At home you have (usually) a land line, at work you have a work line, while in church you shouldn't use your phone, and if you're at your parents' every Sunday afternoon everybody who matters knows where to find you.

    I'm old enough to have lived part of my adult life in times before everybody had a cell phone. It was quite easy to live in those times actually, the "always on" society hasn't improved our lives that much after all.

  9. Chairman of the Bored

    Purely hypothetical question...

    It seems to me a mobile has three sources of location; GPS if on, geolocation through cell tower triangulation, and geolocation by IP address on your WiFi - which I assume is a database lookup against your provider's data.

    Which one has highest priority?

    And given a disagreement between the three sources, what is considered ground truth?

    My assumption is that GPS is the gold standard if available. And if for some reason an SDR was spoofing a location... can you move yourself or would the discrepancy in your location data sources flag you as a person of interest?

    1. Danny 2

      Re: Purely hypothetical question...

      Not just your wifi, phone apps narrow your location by checking nearby wifi networks.

  10. bep

    Home address big deal

    Since I'm on the electoral roll finding my home address doesn't seem that clever. The constant tracking as you move about is far more sinister to me.

    1. a_yank_lurker

      Re: Home address big deal

      Home addresses are well known for most as one tends to live in the same place for several years if not decades. So at some point your address will likely make it in semi-public database. In the landline days, unless you had an unlisted number, it was published in the phone book ('White Pages' over here) and distributed to everyone in the service area with phone service.

  11. Flywheel

    good enough for government, [or in this case academic,] work

    If they're basing your alleged location on latitude and longitude, tower bock dwellers would be relatively safe compared with other house types when they send in the drone. If they're including height in that location info then I'd be worried...

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Smartphones are for dumb people

    I run a business using Sipgate phone numbers, they look like landlines. If customers ring me when I'm out, I receive an email with an .mp3 attached.

  13. Someone Else Silver badge
    Flame

    Yeah, comma, right!

    On its website, the company downplays the value of such information by referring to it as "mobile location exhaust data," as if it were an unwanted waste product.

    Of course, one must call bullshit. If it were a "waste product" they couldn't make any money on it, and would therefore not waste precious terabytes storing it, now would they?

    (Icon is the nearest approximation of "liar-liar-pants-on-fire")

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