I wonder if any of those companies had access to, and sold, roaming European users location data. The GDPR may possibly be weaponized if it was the case...
The GDPR doesn't apply to "roaming European users."
Mobile customer location data is ending up in the hands of bounty hunters
191–200 of 253 posts
Re: Mobile customer location data is ending up in the hands of bounty hunters
#192Earlier quoted context omitted.
How about we start with not allowing people to legally kidnap individuals? I never understood the whole concept of “bounty hunters” in the US it’s not the Wild West anymore. The problem here is that “fugitive recovery” doesn’t need to meet any of the standards normal law enforcement does and unless they kill someone or injure bystanders there likely won’t be an investigation into their conduct and even if there is on…
> How about we start with not allowing people to legally kidnap individuals? Then you'd have to give up being able to afford bail; without bounty hunters, bondsman would have no recourse when you didn't show up to court and thus not much incentive to loan you bail money. You're not being legally kidnapped, you agreed to those terms when you borrowed the bond money for bail.
> Then you'd have to give up being able to afford bail
California did this last year. People still get released pending trial, they just aren't required to pay a private party for the privilege.
Re: Mobile customer location data is ending up in the hands of bounty hunters
#193Earlier quoted context omitted.
Adding: You should still be able to use services, without consenting to them selling your data, like you can under the GDPR.
Would your tune change if by not agreeing to sell your own data, the service charges you money?
Absolutely. I do this every day to avoid ads. Happy youtube red (or whatever they call it) subscriber. I'd pay most services I value to opt out of data sharing.
I know many people don't get enough value out of services like Facebook, but I do. There is a price I'd pay to Facebook to use their services to not have my data sold.
Re: Mobile customer location data is ending up in the hands of bounty hunters
#194Perhaps this is a good reason to use Google Voice and not give anyone the underlying real phone number with cell service.
Out of the frying pan and into the fire...
Re: Mobile customer location data is ending up in the hands of bounty hunters
#195Are we gonna talk about the Silicon Valley VC's investing in these shady companies? > Zumigo is a pioneer of mobile services providing _deeper insights_ into consumer behavior to help secure transactions, devices and identities. https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/zumigo > Intel Capital > Aligned Partners
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Re: Mobile customer location data is ending up in the hands of bounty hunters
#196I think we need to reassess how we treat data generated by users via phones, devices and our digital activities. We had the concept of private and public property long before intellectual property became codified by law. I believe that we are entering a new phase which may require the development of a new type of jurisprudence around things like location data. I'm definitely not a lawyer, but I'm starting to believe…
I've been saying for a while (check my profile) that user data should be treated in much the same way as nuclear raw materials.
Meaning small amounts properly contained (i.e. in a smoke detector) is fine and if you need to collect and especially concentrate larger amounts you should need to go through a whole lot of useful hoops to weed away less serious companies.
Re: Mobile customer location data is ending up in the hands of bounty hunters
#197Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're putting the cart before the horse; until you change the government and thus the bail system, we need bondsman. Making bounties illegal won't stop judges from setting bails people can't afford and is thus not a valid solution.
There are several states with no private bail including Oregon and Massachusetts somehow I doubt that offenders in those states are worse off. In a country where judges are elected a multi billion dollar has a lot of power in determining how bail is set by the courts. If you think that judges that get donations from bondsmen don’t take that into account when setting bail you are very naive. This is the exact same pro…
You finally explained a mystery to me why growing up in Oregon, I've never seen a bailbond place with its flashy neon signs and general run-down areas outside of courthouses. Something I became fairly familiar with moving around California.
Re: Mobile customer location data is ending up in the hands of bounty hunters
#198Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is kind of our own fault, though. Judging by the sentiment on HN when GDPR was coming into effect, if something like it came up for a vote in the US, a lot of HN users and other tech people would vote against it. There was no shortage of angry geeks posting articles about their service turning away EU users rather than complying with GDPR.
If you work in tech or marketing your salary comes from eroding privacy. There is a lot of money at stake here and people don't vote against their interests. Europeans aren't inherently better: if Facebook and Google were companies founded in Germany or France who knows if GDPR would exist.
>If you work in tech or marketing, your salary comes from eroding privacy.
Your own inherent weakness in morality doesn't implicitly infer that this is the inherent truth for everyone else in the tech or marketing industry. (Perhaps, moreso for tech than marketing but I digress.)
Not everyone in either industry is inherently on the "I'm just in it for the money" bandwagon.
Re: Mobile customer location data is ending up in the hands of bounty hunters
#199Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not familiar with how GSM networks operate. Why would I send a request to Huawei or Ericsson? Don't they just provide networking equipment? Or do they also provide services, part of which may be relevant for end user privacy?
My info may be a little dated, but yes, most of these companies (Huawei, Ericsson, Alcatel-Lucent, etc) also provide network services and ops to run the network.
Disclaimer: I work at Ericsson but am not directly involved in any network operations.
Ericsson provides operations service for a number of telecom operators. This means, the operators own the equipment and make the decisions, while Ericsson does the maintenance, supervision and troubleshooting of the network. This is usually done on contracts of three to ten years, after which time the operator may choose to renew or to contract with one of our competitors.
I could certainly be wrong, but my impression is that in this scenario Ericsson is not the data custodian according to the GDPR. It would be interesting to know what the outcome is, if anyone were to make a GDPR request to my employer.
Re: Mobile customer location data is ending up in the hands of bounty hunters
#2005G microcells will make this data much more accurate.
The network operator already has more detailed info, but the article says they are fuzzing it before selling it. Presumably this is to prevent pinpointing users too precisely.
If radio cells are smaller, they get higher resolution in the source data, but we can't know what resolution data they would resell.