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Carrier sales of phone-location data is illegal, FCC plans punishment

arstechnica.com

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Re: Carrier sales of phone-location data is illegal, FCC plans punishment

#81

Post by underpand »

londons_explore wrote: post #22
parvenu74 wrote: post #20

But Facebook, Google, Microsoft, et al are still free to sell phone location data acquired through apps (or Android itself in the case of Google), right? I wonder if there is any hope of laws to limit the ability of companies to sell this data...

It's time to differentiate selling "Bob is in Location X" from "Show this ad to all people at location X". The first case is a far far bigger privacy concern to me, and seems to be what mobile networks were doing. Facebook, Google, and Microsoft are doing the latter.

Yes, there are a lot of malicious actors that actually sell data (apps, browser extensions, phone carriers, potentially ISPs, finance companies, etc.). Many of these actors even sell un-anonymized data. The big tech companies are very low on the totem pole of badness and will continue to stay that way for a long time because the incentives don't align for them to actually sell data.

Re: Carrier sales of phone-location data is illegal, FCC plans punishment

#82

Post by dd36 »

Reelin wrote: post #62
dd36 wrote: post #12

Toothless fines. Indict corporate officers or employees that did it... then you’ll get change.

Unless they knowingly and intentionally broke criminal law, that's completely over the top and unnecessary. Fines should presumably start small and have a graduated structure to prevent the "just a business expense" approach from becoming a viable one. The current regulatory problems are due almost entirely (IMO) to lack of active enforcement; why care what the penalty is if you know it won't happen to you regardless…

You don’t have to knowingly break the law to be criminally charged. If you’re in a position where a law might apply, you should do your due diligence or get legal counsel sign off. Selling private location data should easily cause a competent executive to think twice and confirm it’s okay.

Re: Carrier sales of phone-location data is illegal, FCC plans punishment

#84

Post by underpand »

adrr wrote: post #70

Biggest industry affected is the banks. They’ll ping your phone location if you make out of area purchases as a part of fraud detection. If your bank doesn’t require travel notices, they are probably pulling mobile location. Some don’t, I know chase uses mobile app to determine location.

Do banks actually buy location data from carriers?

Re: Carrier sales of phone-location data is illegal, FCC plans punishment

#85

Post by dudus »

bitexploder wrote: post #36
0x5f3759df-i wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Supreme Court ruled in 2018 that obtaining phone location data requires a warrant. [1] So no, neither one is okay. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carpenter_v._United_States

They (NSA / govt) still warehouse it. They just don’t access it without a warrant. That is the current legal fiction they operate the surveillance state under.

They were once caught doing that, which caused a shit show. It doesn't mean they are currently doing that. Maybe they are, I don't know, and neither does you, asserting that they do it only spreads panic and misinformation

Re: Carrier sales of phone-location data is illegal, FCC plans punishment

#86

Post by mankyd »

ta999999171 wrote: post #63
thedance wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not. The extent to which old-line businesses like telcos and banks will literally sell your data is way beyond anything Google has ever contemplated. I can call a credit card data clearinghouse and order all of the transactions of every age 30-35 male in Akron, Ohio in December 2019 and they'll put that in a spreadsheet and send it to me. It really is important to distinguish between "selling your data" and what…

I'm more worried when I CAN'T buy that data - because then I have no idea what they're holding onto (for private deals, either with corps, defense contractors, .gov, etc).

You don't have to buy it. It's free: https://takeout.google.com/settings/takeout

Re: Carrier sales of phone-location data is illegal, FCC plans punishment

#89

Post by jefftk »

dd36 wrote: post #82
Reelin wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless they knowingly and intentionally broke criminal law, that's completely over the top and unnecessary. Fines should presumably start small and have a graduated structure to prevent the "just a business expense" approach from becoming a viable one. The current regulatory problems are due almost entirely (IMO) to lack of active enforcement; why care what the penalty is if you know it won't happen to you regardless…

You don’t have to knowingly break the law to be criminally charged. If you’re in a position where a law might apply, you should do your due diligence or get legal counsel sign off. Selling private location data should easily cause a competent executive to think twice and confirm it’s okay.

Why do you think corporate counsel didn't sign off on this?

Re: Carrier sales of phone-location data is illegal, FCC plans punishment

#90

Post by ClumsyPilot »

Reelin wrote: post #62
dd36 wrote: post #12

Toothless fines. Indict corporate officers or employees that did it... then you’ll get change.

Unless they knowingly and intentionally broke criminal law, that's completely over the top and unnecessary. Fines should presumably start small and have a graduated structure to prevent the "just a business expense" approach from becoming a viable one. The current regulatory problems are due almost entirely (IMO) to lack of active enforcement; why care what the penalty is if you know it won't happen to you regardless…

Why should fines for selling private data of millions of people start small? Will they ever get large enough to get companies to care?
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