{"id":30839,"date":"2022-08-30T05:45:00","date_gmt":"2022-08-30T05:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=30839"},"modified":"2022-08-31T13:22:05","modified_gmt":"2022-08-31T13:22:05","slug":"ftc-lawsuit-spotlights-a-major-privacy-risk-from-call-records-to-sensors-your-phone-reveals-more-about-you-than-you-think","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/ftc-lawsuit-spotlights-a-major-privacy-risk-from-call-records-to-sensors-your-phone-reveals-more-about-you-than-you-think\/","title":{"rendered":"FTC lawsuit spotlights a major privacy risk: From call records to sensors, your phone reveals more about you than you think"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Susan Landau<\/a>, Tufts University<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Federal Trade Commission filed suit<\/a> against Kochava Inc. on Aug. 29, 2022, accusing the data broker of selling geolocation data from hundreds of millions of mobile devices. Consumers are often unaware that their location data is being sold and that their past movements can be tracked, according to the commission.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The FTC\u2019s suit specified that Kochava\u2019s data can be used to track consumers to sensitive locations<\/a>, including \u201cto identify which consumers\u2019 mobile devices visited reproductive health clinics.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade<\/a> on June 24, 2022, many people seeking abortion care found themselves in legal jeopardy. Numerous state laws criminalizing abortion thrust the perilous state of personal privacy into the spotlight. As a cybersecurity and privacy researcher<\/a>, I\u2019ve seen how readily people\u2019s movements and activities can be tracked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If people want to travel incognito to an abortion clinic, according to well-meaning advice<\/a>, they need to plan their trip the way a CIA operative might \u2013 and get a burner phone<\/a>. Unfortunately, that still wouldn\u2019t be good enough to guarantee privacy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Using a maps app to plan a route, sending terms to a search engine and chatting online are ways that people actively share their personal data. But mobile devices share far more data than just what their users say or type. They share information with the network about whom people contacted, when they did so, how long the communication lasted and what type of device was used. The devices must do so in order to connect a phone call or send an email.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Who\u2019s talking to whom<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

When NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden disclosed<\/a> that the National Security Agency<\/a> was collecting Americans\u2019 telephone call metadata \u2013 the Call Detail Records<\/a> \u2013 in bulk in order to track terrorists, there was a great deal of public consternation. The public was rightly concerned about loss of privacy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Researchers at Stanford later showed that call detail records plus publicly available information could reveal sensitive information<\/a>, such as whether someone had a heart problem and their arrhythmia monitoring device was malfunctioning or whether they were considering opening a marijuana dispensary. Often you don\u2019t have to listen in to know what someone is thinking or planning. Call detail records \u2013 who called whom and when \u2013 can give it all away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The transmission information in internet-based communications \u2013 IP-packet headers<\/a> \u2013 can reveal even more than call detail records do. When you make an encrypted voice call over the internet \u2013 a Voice over IP call \u2013 the contents may be encrypted but information in the packet header can nonetheless sometimes divulge some of the words you\u2019re speaking<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A pocket full of sensors<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s not the only information given away by your communications device. Smartphones are computers, and they have many sensors<\/a>. For your phone to properly display information, it has a gyroscope and an accelerometer; to preserve battery life, it has a power sensor; to provide directions, a magnetometer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just as communications metadata can be used to track what you\u2019re doing, these sensors can be used for other purposes. You might shut off GPS to prevent apps from tracking your location, but data from a phone\u2019s gyroscope, accelerometer and magnetometer<\/a> can also track where you\u2019re going. https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/CxC1KCoGbIM?wmode=transparent&start=0 What the sensors in your phone do and how they add up to a lot of data about you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This sensor data could be attractive to businesses. For example, Facebook has a patent<\/a> that relies on the different wireless networks near a user to determine when two people might have been close together frequently \u2013 at a conference, riding a commuter bus \u2013 as a basis for providing an introduction. Creepy? You bet. As someone who rode the New York City subways as a young girl, the last thing I want is my phone introducing me to someone who has repeatedly stood too close to me in a subway car.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Uber knows that people really want a ride when their battery power is low<\/a>. Is the company checking for that data and charging more? Uber claims not, but the possibility is there<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And it\u2019s not just apps that get access to this data trove. Data brokers<\/a> get this information from the apps, then compile it with other data and provide it to companies and governments<\/a> to use for their own purposes. Doing so can circumvent legal protections that require law enforcement to go to court before they obtain this information.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Beyond consent<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s not a whole lot users can do to protect themselves. Communications metadata and device telemetry \u2013 information from the phone sensors \u2013 are used to send, deliver and display content. Not including them is usually not possible. And unlike the search terms or map locations you consciously provide, metadata and telemetry are sent without you even seeing it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Providing consent isn\u2019t plausible. There\u2019s too much of this data, and it\u2019s too complicated to decide each case. Each application you use \u2013 video, chat, web surfing, email \u2013 uses metadata and telemetry differently. Providing truly informed consent that you know what information you\u2019re providing and for what use is effectively impossible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you use your mobile phone for anything other than a paperweight, your visit to the cannabis dispensary and your personality \u2013 how extroverted you are<\/a> or whether you\u2019re likely to be on the outs with family since the 2016 election<\/a> \u2013 can be learned from metadata and telemetry and shared.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s true even for a burner phone bought with cash, at least if you plan on turning the phone on. Do so while carrying your regular phone and you\u2019ll have given away that the two phones are associated \u2013 and perhaps even that they belong to you. As few as four location points can identify<\/a> a user, another way your burner phone can reveal your identity. If you\u2019re driving with someone else, they\u2019d have to be equally careful or their phone would identify them \u2013 and you. Metadata and telemetry information reveals a remarkable amount about you. But you don\u2019t get to decide who gets that data, or what they do with it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The reality of technological life<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

There are some constitutional guarantees to anonymity. For example, the Supreme Court held that the right to associate, guaranteed by the First Amendment<\/a>, is the right to associate privately<\/a>, without providing membership lists to the state. But with smartphones, that\u2019s a right that\u2019s effectively impractical to exercise. it\u2019s nearly impossible to function without a mobile phone. Paper maps and public payphones<\/a> have virtually disappeared. If you want to do anything \u2013 travel from here to there, make an appointment, order takeout or check the weather \u2013 you all but need a smartphone to do so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s not just people who might be seeking abortions whose privacy is at risk from this data that phones shed. It could be your kid applying for a job: For instance, the company could check location data to see if they are participating in political protests. Or it could be you, when the gyroscope, accelerometer and magnetometer data gives away that you and your co-worker went to the same hotel room at night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s a way to solve this chilling scenario, and that\u2019s for laws or regulations to require that the data you provide to send and receive communications \u2013 TikTok, SnapChat, YouTube \u2013 is used just for that, and nothing else. That helps the people going for abortions \u2013 and all the rest of us as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article was updated on Aug. 29, 2022, to indicate that the U.S. Federal Trade Commission filed suit against a data broker.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Susan Landau<\/a>, Professor of Cyber Security and Policy, Tufts University<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Susan Landau, Tufts University The Federal Trade Commission filed suit against Kochava Inc. on Aug. 29, 2022, accusing the data broker of selling geolocation data from hundreds of millions of mobile devices. Consumers are often unaware that their location data is being sold and that their past movements can be tracked, according to the commission. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":30840,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3410,8],"tags":[2388,12414,12413,527,9843,5694,12194,733,525,1908,3987,3243,255,12412,9152],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30839"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30839"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30839\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30841,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30839\/revisions\/30841"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30839"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30839"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30839"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}