Thread · 5 tweets · 19 Dec 2019

"The companies that collect all this information on your movements justify their business on the basis of three claims: People consent to be tracked, the data is anonymous and the data is secure. None of those claims hold up." nytimes.com/interactive/20…

We've covered these issues before — this time it's with a larger dataset, and a year later there's been no legislation to fix this and we're still hearing "transparency, choice, and consent" can fix this. It can't. nytimes.com/interactive/20…

Do you have access to massive troves of personal data? Geolocation? Bidstream logs? Here is how to give us tips while protecting your anonymity: nytimes.com/tips

It's interesting to contrast these stories with yesterday's excellent look at China's "sweeping tools for authoritarian control". It's notably fun to see that Chinese state surveillance is just as careless with data as private companies! nytimes.com/2019/12/17/tec…

A few years back I toured a major tech company in Shenzhen. I met young, hip, stylish, smart people who demoed the surveillance tools they built in perfect English. In the West you meet the same people — they are just pitching their wares to marketers instead of government.