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Virginia bans sale of precise geolocation data

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Re: Virginia bans sale of precise geolocation data

#131

Post by titzer »

abustamam wrote: post #113
ascotan wrote: post #105

The article is misleading. The sale of geolocation data can still take place but not for precise locations. The bill prevents the sale of data that can identify you within 1750ft. You can still be tracked just not precisely. i.e. companies will just sell fuzzy geolocation data.

Yeesh. Collect enough fuzzy data and you can identify a lot about someone.

8 hours in fuzzy spot one, 8 hours in fuzzy spot two, fitting some gaussian distribution, and then a few points at other times, and boom, not anonymous at all.

Re: Virginia bans sale of precise geolocation data

#132

Post by mschuster91 »

polski-g wrote: post #54
erentz wrote: post #46

What is the rationale for going to the trouble of such a law but only banning sale, rather than all sharing?

Because the data is very helpful in pricing risk of drivers in insurance premiums. Obviously risky drivers should be charged a higher rate.

Cry me a river, insurance companies have managed to do just fine without massive privacy violations and creating a data trough for police and other pigs, ever since car insurance became a thing.

Re: Virginia bans sale of precise geolocation data

#133

Post by mschuster91 »

pixl97 wrote: post #73
polski-g wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not arbitrary. In Virginia that's a guaranteed reckless driving charge.

Texas: we set the speed limit at 85.

Meanwhile Germany: that's the target speed you should aim for, but if you want to drive faster, you absolutely can.

Re: Virginia bans sale of precise geolocation data

#134

Post by roysting »

ascotan wrote: post #105

The article is misleading. The sale of geolocation data can still take place but not for precise locations. The bill prevents the sale of data that can identify you within 1750ft. You can still be tracked just not precisely. i.e. companies will just sell fuzzy geolocation data.

That’s effectively always the point in this fake America (and no, that’s not a recent characteristic), misleading; or more specifically false confession, preemptive narrative control, and a form of poisoning the well.

See, peasants, we passed a bill to stop location data selling and the organs of the state called the mainstream media have triangulated and validated that for you; so now you can stop talking about your location data or that you live in a surveillance state that is inherently legitimizing of this fake American government that is a contradiction to the Constitution and the revolution in every single possible way.

Re: Virginia bans sale of precise geolocation data

#135

Post by Hikikomori »

dotancohen wrote: post #114
Hikikomori wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds like something Europeans would do, so it's anti american.

In Europe, who owns the copyright of a photograph? The subject or the photographer?

If a company writes down my personal information do they now own it?

Re: Virginia bans sale of precise geolocation data

#136

Post by prasadjoglekar »

avarun wrote: post #44

As long as this is actually about "sale" of data and actually imposes strict limits on data brokers and all the nefarious actors out there, I am all for it. If it's more similar to the California law, which just calls all uses of data "selling data" and just ends up muddying the waters without actually imposing any regulations of value on the bad actors in the industry, then that would be a shame. There is value to a…

The biggest issue is that enforcement and litigation is limited to the VA AG. You and I as wronged citizens can't go sue.

That's corny capitalism. A sibling post that talked about 1750 ft or whatever is just noise.

Re: Virginia bans sale of precise geolocation data

#137

Post by seanhunter »

abustamam wrote: post #113
ascotan wrote: post #105

The article is misleading. The sale of geolocation data can still take place but not for precise locations. The bill prevents the sale of data that can identify you within 1750ft. You can still be tracked just not precisely. i.e. companies will just sell fuzzy geolocation data.

Yeesh. Collect enough fuzzy data and you can identify a lot about someone.

Yes. This general problem is known as "k-anonymity". It's worth everyone who works with any sort of personally-identifiable data to read the original paper because the framework they identified is still really helpful for thinking about these issues. https://dataprivacylab.org/dataprivacy/projects/kanonymity/p...

Re: Virginia bans sale of precise geolocation data

#138

Post by baq »

titzer wrote: post #131
abustamam wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeesh. Collect enough fuzzy data and you can identify a lot about someone.

8 hours in fuzzy spot one, 8 hours in fuzzy spot two, fitting some gaussian distribution, and then a few points at other times, and boom, not anonymous at all.

add Cauchy noise, problem solved, right? …right?

Re: Virginia bans sale of precise geolocation data

#139

Post by gwerbin »

somenameforme wrote: post #116
abustamam wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeesh. Collect enough fuzzy data and you can identify a lot about someone.

Yeah I don't understand how something like this makes any sense. Just average out the data points and you're going to get pretty much a straight line path of where and what somebody did. Maybe if there's like one data point per week per person, but even that's going to be pretty informative when averaged as to exactly where somebody lives, works, and so on.

It's a classic legislation move to look like you're doing something in order to shut down public displeasure, while not actually doing anything.

Re: Virginia bans sale of precise geolocation data

#140

Post by ck2 »

abustamam wrote: post #113
ascotan wrote: post #105

The article is misleading. The sale of geolocation data can still take place but not for precise locations. The bill prevents the sale of data that can identify you within 1750ft. You can still be tracked just not precisely. i.e. companies will just sell fuzzy geolocation data.

Yeesh. Collect enough fuzzy data and you can identify a lot about someone.

knowing and consequences are apparently two entirely different things

we know every single person that went to Epstein Island from their cellphone geolocation data being sold

absolutely nothing has happened to any of them

* https://www.wired.com/story/jeffrey-epstein-island-visitors-...

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjPHq-Ez0nc

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