Thread · 7 tweets · 20 Dec 2019

"In one case, someone who spent their weekdays at the Pentagon visited a mental health and substance abuse facility multiple times." That's something often overlooked into privacy discussions: national security. nytimes.com/interactive/20…

This is something that's underappreciated: @stuartathompson and @cwarzel performed state-level espionage work with what is in fact a tiny dataset compared to what these companies amass constantly. What used to require the KGB is now in the hands of common thugs.

(Now I'm not saying that Stuart and Charlie are thugs. I haven't said that.)

With a small geo dataset you have blackmail material on prison guards, Secret Service agents, people in defence, nuclear energy, the judiciary, politics, in corporate power positions… And that's just geo! Adtech logs have way more: what you read and watch. Yes, including porn.

The threat is also time-shifted: a surveillance company that's paying top security experts to protect your data today when things are good will change its business model and practices when things go south. Remember 2007? theguardian.com/technology/200…

And it's not just apps and ads collecting that data. Here is a study showing Android collecting your geolocation hundreds of times a day, even when you're not even touching your phone. digitalcontentnext.org/blog/2018/08/2…

The solutions that the industry are offering all revolve around "privacy is personal responsibility" and "transparency, choice, and control". If you understand how that solves the issues in this thread please let me know — because I don't.