[rad-green] This Story on Cellphone Tracking 'Is the Most Important Article You Should Read Today. Period.'

*https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/12/19/story-cellphone-tracking-most-important-article-you-should-read-today-period
<https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/12/19/story-cellphone-tracking-most-important-article-you-should-read-today-period>Common
Dreams          December 19, 2019This Story on Cellphone Tracking 'Is the
Most Important Article You Should Read Today. Period.'The New York Times
published the first piece in its "One Nation, Tracked" investigation based
on a data set with over 50 billion location pings.by Jessica Corbett, staff
writer*

[image: One Nation, Tracked]

*The New York Times on Thursday published its first article in a new series
about smartphone tracking. (Image: The New York Times/screenshot)*

*The New York Times*' on Thursday sparked calls for congressional action by
publishing the first article in its "One Nation, Tracked" series
<https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/12/19/opinion/location-tracking-cell-phone.html>,
an investigation into smartphone tracking based on a data set with over 50
billion location pings from the devices of more than 12 million people in
the United States.

The data, from 2016 and 2017, "was provided to *Times Opinion* by sources
who asked to remain anonymous because they were not authorized to share it
and could face severe penalties for doing so," explained reporters Stuart
A. Thompson and Charlie Warzel. "The sources of the information said they
had grown alarmed about how it might be abused and urgently wanted to
inform the public and lawmakers."

Readers and fellow journalists quickly turned to social media to draw
attention to the reporting. Laura Rosenberger, director of the Alliance for
Securing Democracy, tweeted
<https://twitter.com/rosenbergerlm/status/1207648926326775809>: "This is
the most important article you should read today. Period."

Aaron Zitner of the *Wall Street Journal* concurred, writing
<https://twitter.com/aaronzitner/status/1207652262392107010> on Twitter:
"This is surely the most consequential piece of journalism published today,
and its presentation is the highest form of storytelling. Think of what an
authoritarian state is already doing with this technology."

The new report—the first of seven pieces
<https://twitter.com/cwarzel/status/1207646110371786752> set to be
published this week by the *Times* Opinion Section's "Privacy Project
<https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/opinion/internet-privacy-project.html>"—features
visualizations of the data from Central Park, Grand Central Terminal, and
the New York Stock Exchange in New York City; Beverly Hills; downtown San
Francisco; Mar-a-Lago, President Donald Trump's resort in Florida; the
White House; and the Pentagon.

"The data reviewed by *Times Opinion* didn't come from a telecom or giant
tech company, nor did it come from a governmental surveillance operation.
It originated from a location data company, one of dozens quietly
collecting precise movements using software slipped onto mobile phone
apps," explained Thompson and Warzel.

The reporters added that "you've probably never heard of most of the
companies—and yet to anyone who has access to this data, your life is an
open book. They can see the places you go every moment of the day, whom you
meet with or spend the night with, where you pray, whether you visit a
methadone clinic, a psychiatrist's office or a massage parlor."

But Thompson and Warzel weren't just "shaken" by what they found when
delving into what data location companies can see—they also highlighted
that this behavior is only governed by the companies' internal policies and
the moral compasses of employees. As the article detailed: "Today, it's
perfectly legal to collect and sell all this information. In the United
States, as in most of the world, no federal law limits what has become a
vast and lucrative trade in human tracking."

The reporters described the data collected from smartphones as "a diary of
your every movement."

The companies that collect all this information on your movements justify
their business on the basis of three claims: People consent to be tracked,
the data is anonymous, and the data is secure.

None of those claims hold up, based on the file we've obtained and our
review of company practices.

Yes, the location data contains billions of data points with no
identifiable information like names or email addresses. But it's child's
play to connect real names to the dots that appear on the maps.

To demonstrate how easy it is to figure out who someone is based on their
smartphone data, Thompson and Warzel included some examples.

"We spotted a senior official at the Department of Defense walking through
the Women's March, beginning on the National Mall and moving past the
Smithsonian National Museum of American History that afternoon," they
reported. "His wife was also on the mall that day, something we discovered
after tracking him to his home in Virginia. Her phone was also beaming out
location data, along with the phones of several neighbors."

"The official's data trail also led to a high school, homes of friends, a
visit to Joint Base Andrews, workdays spent in the Pentagon and a ceremony
at Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall with President Barack Obama in 2017
(nearly a dozen more phones were tracked there, too)," the piece continued.
The reporters even spoke with some of the individuals they were able to
identify, such as Ben Broili, a manager for the drone delivery service
Amazon Prime Air, and Mary Millben, a Virginia-based singer who has
performed for three presidents.

"To know that you have a list of places I have been, and my phone is
connected to that, that's scary," Millben told the *Times*. "What's the
business of a company benefiting off of knowing where I am? That seems a
little dangerous to me."

The ACLU responded to the *Times *report with a call to action directed at
Congress, tweeting <https://twitter.com/ACLU/status/1207720461322211328>:
"This investigation exposes the disastrous implications of living in a
society where companies are allowed to turn our cell phones into always-on
tracking devices with zero legal limitations or oversight. Action from
lawmakers is already years overdue."

"We need strong laws that prevent apps from collecting unnecessary but
sensitive location data and feeding it into surveillance databases," the
group added. "Laws should also provide transparency into how companies are
using and selling data, and allow individuals to sue privacy-violating
companies."

There have been some sweeping
<https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/11/05/democrats-new-online-privacy-bill-heralded-chance-build-alternative-road-digital>
digital
privacy proposals
<https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/11/26/expert-says-senate-democrats-sweeping-online-privacy-bill-answers-public-demand>
introduced
in Congress recently, but in the absence of any established nationwide
rules, "states are starting to respond with their own laws," the
*Times* reported.
"The California Consumer Protection Act goes into effect next year and adds
new protections for residents there, like allowing them to ask companies to
delete their data or prevent its sale. But aside from a few new
requirements, the law could leave the industry largely unencumbered."

Although the *Times* article was widely lauded for contributing to national
awareness about issues and debates related to personal data in the digital
era, it also was met with some criticism from privacy rights experts and
advocates.

In a lengthy Twitter thread, Lindsey Barrett, a staff attorney and teaching
fellow at Georgetown University Law Center's Institute for Public
Representation, called
<https://twitter.com/LAM_Barrett/status/1207656389721636872> the report
"revealing and important" while also criticizing it for framing
"surreptitious and functionally unavoidable surveillance as an individual
failing rather than the intentional project of corporations and their
enablers."

"Framing is everything," Barrett added. "Relying on the premise of 'people
choose to be tracked so our project has to be talking them out of it, not
arguing that the surveillers need more accountability' gives tech lobbyists
who make those self-serving arguments credibility they don't deserve."

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