Data isn't just being collected from your phone, it's being used to score you • Hacker News Board

Re: Data isn't just being collected from your phone, it's being used to score you

#11

Post by beervirus » Sat, Aug 01, 2020, 2:52 PM UTC

hrwl wrote: post #7

dijksterhuis wrote: post #2

I remember once being in a branch of HSBC trying to sort out a loan. I saw on the screen for my account they had a score of something like "customer behaviour", which was like 54 something. I had drunkenly called HSBC and ended up ranting at the person on the phone a few times (lost cards etc) so I think this was a rating of how well behaved I was towards their staff. The manager I was speaking to changed his tone fa…

I've had a similar experience. Had access to a dataset about which many breathless articles were written when it was leaked/breached a couple years later. Was able to find very little data on family members in the set and what was there was quite stale.

The fact that it’s inaccurate doesn’t make it more acceptable.

Re: Data isn't just being collected from your phone, it's being used to score you

#12

Post by dijksterhuis » Sat, Aug 01, 2020, 2:53 PM UTC

elliekelly wrote: post #3

dijksterhuis wrote: post #2

I remember once being in a branch of HSBC trying to sort out a loan. I saw on the screen for my account they had a score of something like "customer behaviour", which was like 54 something. I had drunkenly called HSBC and ended up ranting at the person on the phone a few times (lost cards etc) so I think this was a rating of how well behaved I was towards their staff. The manager I was speaking to changed his tone fa…

It very well might be garbage data but if companies are acting on that data it’s still highly problematic. Maybe even worse than if the data were accurate.

Yeah that's probably the bigger problem!

Re: Data isn't just being collected from your phone, it's being used to score you

#13

Post by Karunamon » Sat, Aug 01, 2020, 2:53 PM UTC

dijksterhuis wrote: post #2

I remember once being in a branch of HSBC trying to sort out a loan. I saw on the screen for my account they had a score of something like "customer behaviour", which was like 54 something. I had drunkenly called HSBC and ended up ranting at the person on the phone a few times (lost cards etc) so I think this was a rating of how well behaved I was towards their staff. The manager I was speaking to changed his tone fa…

I think that people wind up worried about the wrong thing on these systems. The worst case scenario, where some all-knowing system negatively impacts you because it's rating your behavior on some opaque scale, isn't the one we should be worried about.

That by itself is scary enough, but the much more likely case is the one where this system is rating you based on wrong information, and given Finagle's law..

Especially concerning when the justice system starts using this info; you really, really don't want to be the false positive.

Re: Data isn't just being collected from your phone, it's being used to score you

#14

Post by air7 » Sat, Aug 01, 2020, 2:54 PM UTC

elliekelly wrote: post #3

dijksterhuis wrote: post #2

I remember once being in a branch of HSBC trying to sort out a loan. I saw on the screen for my account they had a score of something like "customer behaviour", which was like 54 something. I had drunkenly called HSBC and ended up ranting at the person on the phone a few times (lost cards etc) so I think this was a rating of how well behaved I was towards their staff. The manager I was speaking to changed his tone fa…

It very well might be garbage data but if companies are acting on that data it’s still highly problematic. Maybe even worse than if the data were accurate.

The possible silver lining is that companies will quickly realize the data is garbage (which is causing then losses) and stop using it.

Re: Data isn't just being collected from your phone, it's being used to score you

#15

Post by Solstinox » Sat, Aug 01, 2020, 2:55 PM UTC

cosmodisk wrote: post #5

People are complex. If some piece of code is used to predict my employability based on my facial expressions, there's not much to add. It's already as bad as it gets: you can't say/write anything non vanilla in public because 10 years later some HR snooping app will analyze the sentiment on the post and outright reject you. And we all kind of blindly walking into this no questions asked.

The kind of people who make and buy these technologies say, “you just need more data/a better algorithm.”

They don’t get that you could have 99.99999% of all possible information on a person AND that the missing 0.00001% could change everything you know about them.

Re: Data isn't just being collected from your phone, it's being used to score you

#16

Post by Swizec » Sat, Aug 01, 2020, 2:57 PM UTC

cosmodisk wrote: post #5

People are complex. If some piece of code is used to predict my employability based on my facial expressions, there's not much to add. It's already as bad as it gets: you can't say/write anything non vanilla in public because 10 years later some HR snooping app will analyze the sentiment on the post and outright reject you. And we all kind of blindly walking into this no questions asked.

> If some piece of code is used to predict my employability based on my facial expressions

Funfact: when I first moved to USA I would practice emoting in the mirror so Americans could read my face and wouldn’t penalize me during interactions. Now people back home say I “grin like an american”

> can’t say anything in public

Ever noticed how Gen Z is switching back to private chatrooms and message groups? Public stuff is all polished and curated.

Re: Data isn't just being collected from your phone, it's being used to score you

#17

Post by drtillberg » Sat, Aug 01, 2020, 2:59 PM UTC

A central premise of this article is not correct. If an employer, for example, is using tens of thousands of background data points to deny employment to a person, the employer would need to disclose that to the applicant.[1]. If the things in this article are secret then the law may well be violated. Also, not really the best idea to apply secret proprietary algorithms to these kinds of decisions because you're eventually going to have to disprove improper bias, which can easily and "systemically" be baked into a background screening tool.

[1] https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/guidance/background-checks-what-em...

Re: Data isn't just being collected from your phone, it's being used to score you

#18

Post by RealStickman_ » Sat, Aug 01, 2020, 3:02 PM UTC

Eyght wrote: post #9

I feel like the Chinese style social score system won't have enough support in government for most countries, but we'll receive a decentralized version anyway through corporate overreach. Also, it's always amusing to arrive at an article about data collection and be greeted by this: https://i.imgur.com/d4Z4sdd.png

That's actually one of the best cookie banners I have seen. You don't even have to deselect everything, just 3 boxes.

Re: Data isn't just being collected from your phone, it's being used to score you

#19

Post by gmantg » Sat, Aug 01, 2020, 3:03 PM UTC

drtillberg wrote: post #17

A central premise of this article is not correct. If an employer, for example, is using tens of thousands of background data points to deny employment to a person, the employer would need to disclose that to the applicant.[1]. If the things in this article are secret then the law may well be violated. Also, not really the best idea to apply secret proprietary algorithms to these kinds of decisions because you're even…

No need to disclose anything: plausible deniability is enough. And "bias" can be fixed by ad-hoc quotas.

Re: Data isn't just being collected from your phone, it's being used to score you

#20

Post by annoyingnoob » Sat, Aug 01, 2020, 3:06 PM UTC

cosmodisk wrote: post #5

People are complex. If some piece of code is used to predict my employability based on my facial expressions, there's not much to add. It's already as bad as it gets: you can't say/write anything non vanilla in public because 10 years later some HR snooping app will analyze the sentiment on the post and outright reject you. And we all kind of blindly walking into this no questions asked.

At least the Chinese system is out in the open.

Many private companies surveilling everyone without anyone's knowledge is terrible. Companies using these scores are really only targeting a group of people that allow the collection to happen.

My car insurance company would sure love to put a tracker in my car but there is no way in hell that is going to happen. I'm sure my driving style would qualify me for higher rates, yet I've never caused an accident or made a claim where I was at fault.