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What Location Tracking Looks Like

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Re: What Location Tracking Looks Like

#31

Post by nl »

ams6110 wrote: post #26

I guess I don't have a big problem with this, law enforcement would need a warrant to get the information, and in most cases it would only confirm or repudiate what they already know or suspect. It's just a more convenient way to surveil a suspect, and for the suspect it's easier to counter: turn off your phone, or better yet leave it somewhere where you're not.

In 2009, Sprint supplied phone location data to the FBI 8 million times: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/12/gps-data/

"The spokesman also said that law enforcement agents have to obtain a court order for the data, except in special emergency circumstances."

But:

"The US Department of Justice has petitioned the 3rd District Court of Appeals for the right to request cellphone location data without a warrant."

http://thenextweb.com/us/2010/02/11/dept-justice-pushes-warr...

Re: What Location Tracking Looks Like

#32

Post by nl »

For those interested, http://veriplace.com/ allows you to do this kind of serverside phone location tracking yourself.

They say they give people good privacy controls, but it is very unclear if it works on an opt-in or opt-out basis (they claim to track 180 million phones in the US)

Re: What Location Tracking Looks Like

#33

Post by ruff »

nl wrote: post #32

For those interested, http://veriplace.com/ allows you to do this kind of serverside phone location tracking yourself. They say they give people good privacy controls, but it is very unclear if it works on an opt-in or opt-out basis (they claim to track 180 million phones in the US)

It's opt-in--definitely no way to get a locate without a device owner providing permission to do so. It's kind of like a Facebook app, if you're using a service that uses Veriplace to get location information, any end user can log in and modify (or deny) what information that service can access. Location data is only stored as specified by your Veriplace settings and otherwise isn't kept around.

Veriplace is a location aggregator (for details, see http://developer.sprint.com/site/global/go_to_market/aggrega...). Essentially, every carrier has a disparate location infrastructure that would require significant development and customization to integrate with. Simply too much work for most developers. Veriplace and other aggregators provide a much simpler, singular API for accessing location data across multiple carriers.

To be clear--these companies are tightly regulated and strictly watched over by both the government and the carriers. It's not these services that should be the concern, it's more so data retention policies and what not of carriers where the data originates.

Re: What Location Tracking Looks Like

#34

Post by schrototo »

wmf wrote: post #8
davidw wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But why are carriers storing this tracking information for more than 24 hours, unless of course it's by government demand. This information can be invaluable in crime investigations. Think if you're abducted and manage to keep your phone with you and on - they can track it. It's a situation where the data can be valuable, but someone needs to watch the watchers.

IMO the question is: do they start recording your location after the warrant/subpoena or do they just record it all the time?

There's actually a very controversial new EU doctrine that mandates telcos of all member countries to store "connection data" (I only know it by the German word "Verbindungsdaten", which encompasses when you called whom, which websites you visit, who you send email to etc, but not the actual data contained in those transactions) for at least 6 months.

While some countries (like, surprisingly, my native Austria) where actively against the new law for along time, in the end they caved to pressure from the EU (very unsurprisingly). Interestingly, the telcos themselves were against it, since they have to bear most of the costs themselves.

So yes, they do record everything you do, all the time, for everyone in Europe.

Edit: reading up on it again just now (I stopped keeping up on this stuff since it's just so damn infuriating/depressing), the EU doctrine is still much more contested than I thought, lots of countries still refusing to abide by the law. Though I fear they'll all cave eventually...

Re: What Location Tracking Looks Like

#35

Post by cskau »

Neighbouring Denmark (where you'd track me down) put a law into effect some years back saying that all telcos must log basically everything all the time about everyone.

This makes me wonder if I could request to see these full logs from my cell and Internet provider. Would make some interesting data for mining.

Plus I'm sure they'd hate handing it over, which makes this that much sweeter !

Re: What Location Tracking Looks Like

#36

Post by fbailey »

I actually met him at the start of this (Erlangen), it feels even more weird if you think about how much data you can correlate if you have more than one persons data. This could be big - you will probably get millions of funding even pre launch.

Re: What Location Tracking Looks Like

#37

Post by nl »

ruff wrote: post #33
nl wrote: post #32

For those interested, http://veriplace.com/ allows you to do this kind of serverside phone location tracking yourself. They say they give people good privacy controls, but it is very unclear if it works on an opt-in or opt-out basis (they claim to track 180 million phones in the US)

It's opt-in--definitely no way to get a locate without a device owner providing permission to do so. It's kind of like a Facebook app, if you're using a service that uses Veriplace to get location information, any end user can log in and modify (or deny) what information that service can access. Location data is only stored as specified by your Veriplace settings and otherwise isn't kept around. Veriplace is a locati…

It's opt-in

You may be right about it being opt-in - although the "We locate 180 million [phones]" makes that unclear. I don't see how they can claim that if it is opt-in.

definitely no way to get a locate without a device owner providing permission to do so.

It's not clear to me what you are saying here. The carriers know where every phone is (by the cell being used), which is the location used for non-GPS enabled phones. Veriplace may not let you as a developer see this, but given that veriplace seems to get access to your location without permission, I think it is misleading to say there is no way to get access to your location.

these companies are tightly regulated and strictly watched over by both the government and the carriers. It's not these services that should be the concern, it's more so data retention policies and what not of carriers where the data originates.

See, I disagree. I think if Veriplace can get this data then it isn't beyond imagination for other companies to get access to the data from the carriers too.

Re: What Location Tracking Looks Like

#38

Post by chrisjsmith »

fbailey wrote: post #36

I actually met him at the start of this (Erlangen), it feels even more weird if you think about how much data you can correlate if you have more than one persons data. This could be big - you will probably get millions of funding even pre launch.

At the cost of violating everyone's right to privacy? It should not be a cash cow if it's as unethical as that.
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