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Google Privacy Cellphones Software United States

Google's Sidewalk Labs Plans To Sell Location Data On Millions of Cellphones (theintercept.com) 100

Posted by BeauHD from the potential-privacy-concerns dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Intercept: Most of the data collected by urban planners is messy, complex, and difficult to represent. It looks nothing like the smooth graphs and clean charts of city life in urban simulator games like "SimCity." A new initiative from Sidewalk Labs, the city-building subsidiary of Google's parent company Alphabet, has set out to change that. The program, known as Replica, offers planning agencies the ability to model an entire city's patterns of movement. Like "SimCity," Replica's "user-friendly" tool deploys statistical simulations to give a comprehensive view of how, when, and where people travel in urban areas. It's an appealing prospect for planners making critical decisions about transportation and land use. In recent months, transportation authorities in Kansas City, Portland, and the Chicago area have signed up to glean its insights. The only catch: They're not completely sure where the data is coming from.

Typical urban planners rely on processes like surveys and trip counters that are often time-consuming, labor-intensive, and outdated. Replica, instead, uses real-time mobile location data. As Nick Bowden of Sidewalk Labs has explained, "Replica provides a full set of baseline travel measures that are very difficult to gather and maintain today, including the total number of people on a highway or local street network, what mode they're using (car, transit, bike, or foot), and their trip purpose (commuting to work, going shopping, heading to school)." To make these measurements, the program gathers and de-identifies the location of cellphone users, which it obtains from unspecified third-party vendors. It then models this anonymized data in simulations -- creating a synthetic population that faithfully replicates a city's real-world patterns but that "obscures the real-world travel habits of individual people," as Bowden told The Intercept. The program comes at a time of growing unease with how tech companies use and share our personal data -- and raises new questions about Google's encroachment on the physical world.
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Google's Sidewalk Labs Plans To Sell Location Data On Millions of Cellphones More

Google's Sidewalk Labs Plans To Sell Location Data On Millions of Cellphones

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  • If they'll do that, it will be for billions.

  • What else would you expect? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    This is Google, once they collected your data, they WILL sell it.

    If you believe otherwise, I have a nice bridge to sell you.

    • Re:What else would you expect? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Tuesday January 29, 2019 @08:57AM (#58039620) Homepage Journal

      TFA makes it sound sinister, but this is exactly what people signed up for. When turn on your new Android phone for the first time it asks if you want to turn on location history and gives you the privacy policy, which states that anonymized data may be used to build tools like this.

      Also note that they don't sell your data, that would make it worthless. They provide a GUI that lets city planners visualize it, similar to how advertisers can select certain interest groups to show ads to but can't access the underlying data used to assign people to those groups. Google isn't about to give away it's USP.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by sh00z ( 206503 )
        Precisely. In my mind, this is the cost of Waze providing real-time traffic, construction and police reports. Of course, I turn the app off when I'm not actively using it.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        "Also note that they don't sell your data, that would make it worthless."

        I wish people would stop saying stuff like this. The distinction between selling the raw data wholesale and selling access to tools to analyze the raw data is meaningless in terms of privacy.

        Keep in mind that if a project is sufficiently interesting, Google can acquire the company so as to grant the individuals in the project direct access to the raw data.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Google already gives it away to the US Government.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        TFA makes it sound sinister, but this is exactly what people signed up for. When turn on your new Android phone for the first time it asks if you want to turn on location history and gives you the privacy policy, which states that anonymized data may be used to build tools like this.

        Yes, well, we've pretty much been hearing that Google is going to collect your location data even if you disable it and say you don't want that.

        So, my bad news for Google employees is my terms of service say that continuing to t

      • I wiped Google's stock off my Nexus 6 and loaded the Lineage reroll of MicroG. [microg.org]

        That belongs to me, thank you very much.

  • Look what we have here (Score:4, Insightful)

    by fortythirteen ( 5606969 ) on Tuesday January 29, 2019 @08:20AM (#58039440)

    Sidewalk Labs explains that Replica’s data is purchased from telecommunications companies and companies that aggregate mobile location data from different apps.

    But I thought AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile stated that they'll no longer sell location data...

    • But I thought AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile stated that they'll no longer sell location data...

      Believing a promise from a corporation that isn't legally compelled to comply was your first mistake.

      • But I thought AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile stated that they'll no longer sell location data...

        Believing a promise from a corporation that isn't legally compelled to comply was your first mistake.

        Corporations are legally required to abide by any public statement that may affect the share price, which would include statements about how they treat customer data.

  • Commonsense unsurprising article. Shame on slashdot editor.

  • This is not news (Score:5, Insightful)

    by OneHundredAndTen ( 1523865 ) on Tuesday January 29, 2019 @09:12AM (#58039686)
    Being a Google-controlled company, the news would have been if they had decided NOT to sell that data.

  • Invasive tracking (Score:5, Insightful)

    by sinij ( 911942 ) on Tuesday January 29, 2019 @09:13AM (#58039690)
    I hope this practice get squashed under avalanche of privacy-related lawsuits.

    What Evoogle doing with this is in effect asserting that if they can track any electronic device that you have on you, then they can associate it with your identity and sell resulting location data to the highest bidder in any form without you having any say in this. They don't need to actually have any business relationship or agreement with you, it is sufficient that they can fingerprint and identify your electronic device to own your data.

    • I hope this practice get squashed under avalanche of privacy-related lawsuits.

      It won't, let me explain why:

      1. You expressly agreed to this data being collected and also being used in far worse ways than this.
      2. No data is being sold, only a aggregated results based on data is being sold, and even then only access to this data rather than the raw dataset itself.
      3. No individuals can be identified from this data so there's no privacy related effects on anyone.
      4. The high bar for privacy in the USA relies on someone being materially impacted. Far worse privacy breaches have gotten nowhe

      • If you paid for the device before agreeing to the required "contract" then there might not be any "consideration" exchanged by them for signing it, and the only parts that would be valid are the limitations of warranty; and even those wouldn't apply in every state.

        Most of the rest remains to be seen; you only have one party's characterization of what they're doing, but without the specific technical details to do an independent analysis of what they're actually selling.

        Furthermore, cases wouldn't be "privac

        • If you paid for the device before agreeing to the required "contract"

          The location services are optional which provides the device additional functionality beyond it's core and must be expressly activated after reading the license. You paying for a mobile phone is entirely irrelevant.

          Furthermore, cases wouldn't be "privacy" cases, that's a straw man.

          Let me quote you the relevant part of the discussion: "I hope this practice get squashed under avalanche of privacy-related lawsuits."

          • Doesn't it vary from State to State if that is even "expressly stated?" You say stuff about reading a license, but don't they ask you to agree with a yes/no button even when their software knows you've never read it?

            The details might turn out to matter more than the words said while waving the hand.

    • Google is asserting nothing of the sort. First of all, this can't come from Android data alone: since Android vs. iPhone ownership varies by demographic that would give a skewed misrepresentation of traffic patterns. It probably isn't coming from Android data at all, it's probably coming from the telcos. Congress specifically legalized data collection and sale by ISPs back in March of 2017 [nytimes.com], and that would be the most complete dataset for doing something like this.

    • I hope this practice get squashed under avalanche of privacy-related lawsuits.

      Not likely, since Google can prove -- mathematically! [wikipedia.org] -- that there's no privacy impact.

      • They didn't actually claim that. They gave you a list of things that they might have done, and didn't give you any information about what was actually done, and you selected the item in the list most favorable to the person who made the list, and then you substitute that one thing for the whole list.

        In other places, they make much narrower claims, such as that their system "obscures the real-world travel habits of individual people."

        "Obscuring" your real-world habits is not at all the same as "prove -- math

        • You're also forgetting the fact that the data reported is from a simulation derived from the model built from the de-identiied data, not from the input data. And the most logical implication of the list of techniques used is that all of them are used where appropriate.

          But, yes, I'm assuming competence. When it comes to statisticians at Google, that's an eminently reasonable assumption.

          • "But, yes, I'm assuming competence. When it comes to statisticians at Google, that's an eminently reasonable assumption."

            You're also assuming honesty & good will. When it comes to leadership at Google, that's an eminently unreasonable assumption.

            • "But, yes, I'm assuming competence. When it comes to statisticians at Google, that's an eminently reasonable assumption."

              You're also assuming honesty & good will. When it comes to leadership at Google, that's an eminently unreasonable assumption.

              (Note: In this reply, I'm assuming that you are interested in an actual conversation about this topic, and are willing to logically evaluate an opposing point of view. If that's an unreasonable assumption, you can just stop reading now. Otherwise, know that I'm also willing to logically and honestly evaluate counter arguments. This topic is personally important to me.)

              It's not unreasonable at all to assume honesty and goodwill, but let's ignore that. Honesty and good will need not be assumed if motivat

          • You're also forgetting the fact that the data reported is from a simulation derived from the model built from the de-identiied data, not from the input data. And the most logical implication of the list of techniques used is that all of them are used where appropriate.

            But, yes, I'm assuming competence. When it comes to statisticians at Google, that's an eminently reasonable assumption.

            Right, but when google management is pushing the work out into other companies that they can control, that makes me think that perhaps they made a choice to compartmentalize a different set of assumptions.

            You're making assumptions about assumptions, it is not a good system for understanding. If you don't know anything, and you know that much, it would be more knowledge than you have by assumptions based on assumptions.

  • I'm not sure why people can't read or understand what the paragraph is talking about. In a nutshell, Google collects data on where you go via applications like google maps. It shouldn't be a mystery to anyone who uses it because how is is Google asking you to review a restaurant or business you visited. Google would like to provide data to advertisers and city planners but they can't give them the raw data even without names attached because if you can identify where and when someone was, there's a risk

  • So... it looks to me as though this data will be heavily biased towards users of Android. Surely that's not good for urban planners? People with other brands of smartphone or (gasp) no smartphones, surely their activities would affect urban planners too?

  • I do not have even a dumb phone, let alone a smart phone. I do not need 24/7 connection to other people or to the Internet. Thus, my activities would not be tracked.

    All this reminds me of the polling for a U.S. presidential election during the 1930s. The poll predicted a Republican win against Franklin Roosevelt. The problem was that the poll was conducted entirely by phone. The pollster was thus talking to those who, during the Great Depression, could afford phones -- mostly Republicans. Data from Si

    • Technically, this is not correct. Many people with phones are tagging you in pictures, correlating your purchases with theirs, and their home "ring" cameras are illegally recording you in public places, dumping it all into a database, which correlates with your facial recognition data and walk/stride patterns.

      You're being tracked too.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by DERoss ( 1919496 )

        The article indicates Sidewalk Labs' database will involve data obtained by tracking mobile phones. I do not have even a dumb phone. If others are using their phones to tag, photograph, or otherwise track me, I do not see those data being used by Sidewalk Labs. After all, what is the value of non-continuous tracking an unknown person though multiple phones.

  • "ability to model an entire city's patterns of movement"

    That's right. We, the 99%, are statistical data. Just as scientists study the movement of butterflies, whales, migrating birds and ants, we are the subject of scrutiny. Not as unique individuals who have our own special formula at Starbucks, but as a horde. A herd. A quantity.

    Are we wrong to imagine our uniqueness? Are the patterns of our life not special to each of us? Surely we aren't a mass of seven billion clones!

    Actually, this can be a liberating

  • I know the title was just lifted from the article, but it should read "Alphabet's Sidewalk Labs Plans To Sell Location Data On Millions of Cellphones"

    The second sentence of the summary says it is being done by an Alphabet subsidiary, which would make it a "sibling" of Google.

  • Get the fuck out of our lives you assholes.

  • What an odd way to illiterately say "I don't know.

    Surety means 100%. Anything less isn't "not completely sure" it's either "unsure" or "don't know."

    E

  • In the US and Canada it's also used against you, but they pretend that corporations actually care about consumers, when the consumers are actually the product, and treated only as a profit center.

  • In my town there is a retirement home which houses 800+ on a street that's not especially busy, but a downtown artery nonetheless. Most of the residents have mobility issues, but aren't bed-ridden. They literally had to blockade the street multiple times in protest to get a crosswalk installed by the city.

    Sure, the boomer generation is probably the last that's not saturated with cellular users. But there's still a huge number with 25+ years to go, and if anything they're more dependent on city infrastruc

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