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Mobile customer location data is ending up in the hands of bounty hunters

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Re: Mobile customer location data is ending up in the hands of bounty hunters

#12

Perhaps this is a good reason to use Google Voice and not give anyone the underlying real phone number with cell service.

I’ve set up a DID that leads directly to a voicemail box that emails me the recording.

It’s worth the $1/month expense to have a number to hand out to people I don’t want to be available to.

And, in a way, it keeps me available when I’m overseas and don’t have my usual SIM card installed.

I use VoIP.ms

Re: Mobile customer location data is ending up in the hands of bounty hunters

#13

Perhaps this is a good reason to use Google Voice and not give anyone the underlying real phone number with cell service.

any reason to think google doesn't sell your data

No, not particularly.

Re: Mobile customer location data is ending up in the hands of bounty hunters

#14
For EU folks: anyone tried a GDPR request to their phone provider to figure out what do they collect and what do they store? I'm thinking any of the following are within the realm of possibilities:

  - Call history, including metadata and potentially also contents;
  - Text messages, same as with calls: metadata and potentially the contents;
  - Location history;
  - Data connection activity, again: metadata and potentially the contents;
  - IMEIs of the devices I used.
Basically I want http://myactivity.google.com/, but for my mobile subscription.

I submitted a GDPR request to my GSM provider a few days ago, but I'm not fluent in legalese, so may not reach as far as someone fluent in it. Still awaiting initial response.

Re: Mobile customer location data is ending up in the hands of bounty hunters

#15

Change title please and add "in the USA"

The title doesn’t assert that this necessarily exists worldwide.

edit: I mention this downstream, but it's worth correcting myself. The article prominently features a company named Zumigo, which provides mobile device location data in India as well as North America. So adding "in the U.S." to the (already altered) post title is not needed, especially since it could obfuscate the fact that these location companies do operate internationally.

[0] https://zumigo.com/zumigo-introduces-breakthrough-mobile-loc...

Re: Mobile customer location data is ending up in the hands of bounty hunters

#16

Perhaps this is a good reason to use Google Voice and not give anyone the underlying real phone number with cell service.

any reason to think google doesn't sell your data

google monetizes your data (targeting), but doesn't sell it to others.

Re: Mobile customer location data is ending up in the hands of bounty hunters

#17
post #10

Pay operators for the location Pay operators to auto-rotate your number every so often It's free real estate!

Is this a computer generated sentence?

It's perfectly good sentence (or 3, rather) once you insert the missing punctuation; a full stop before each of the capitalized words (except the first.)

Re: Mobile customer location data is ending up in the hands of bounty hunters

#18
post #9

It would appear that sometimes even paying for the service doesn’t mean you won’t end up as the product anyway. How can one avoid this kind of aggregated location tracking?

You guys need (something like) GDPR in the US. I believe it's a necessity.

Re: Mobile customer location data is ending up in the hands of bounty hunters

#19
post #9

It would appear that sometimes even paying for the service doesn’t mean you won’t end up as the product anyway. How can one avoid this kind of aggregated location tracking?

As long as you want to receive calls, the cell service provider will know your approximate location. If you have wifi available, you can mitigate this by only using a voip/messaging service like jmp.chat. You'll still be unavailable while on the road, though.

If you have tons of money, satphone is always an option.

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