First US Ban on Sale of Cellphone Location Data Might Be Coming (wsj.com) 28
Massachusetts lawmakers are weighing a near total ban on buying and selling of location data drawn from consumers' mobile devices in the state, in what would be a first-in-the-nation effort to rein in a billion-dollar industry. From a report: The legislature held a hearing last month on a bill called the Location Shield Act, a sweeping proposal that would sharply curtail the practice of collecting and selling location data drawn from mobile phones in Massachusetts. The proposal would also institute a warrant requirement for law-enforcement access to location data, banning data brokers from providing location information about state residents without court authorization in most circumstances.
Location data is typically collected through mobile apps and other digital services and doesn't include information such as a name or a phone number. But often, a device's movement patterns are enough to derive a possible identity of its owner. For example, where a phone spends its evening and overnight hours is usually the owner's home address and can be cross-checked against other databases for additional insight. The Massachusetts proposal is part of a flurry of state-level activity to better protect the digital privacy of residents in the absence of a comprehensive national law. Ten states have enacted privacy laws in recent years under both Republican and Democratic-controlled legislatures. Several bipartisan proposals are under consideration in Congress but have failed to gain traction.
Location data is typically collected through mobile apps and other digital services and doesn't include information such as a name or a phone number. But often, a device's movement patterns are enough to derive a possible identity of its owner. For example, where a phone spends its evening and overnight hours is usually the owner's home address and can be cross-checked against other databases for additional insight. The Massachusetts proposal is part of a flurry of state-level activity to better protect the digital privacy of residents in the absence of a comprehensive national law. Ten states have enacted privacy laws in recent years under both Republican and Democratic-controlled legislatures. Several bipartisan proposals are under consideration in Congress but have failed to gain traction.
Sounds great (Score:2)
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What makes you say that?
It seems like from a law enforcement perspective it should be straightfoward to go to a judge and say, "we have an open investigation of a crime believed committed at $ADDRESS some time during $TIMERANGE and we would like to subpoena records from the cellular providers for phones that connected to towers serving this area, and for customer record information for those services."
Or for law enforcement to go to the judge and say, "We suspect $PERSON (and $PERSON2 [etc]) to have been in
Re:Sounds great (Score:5, Insightful)
There are multiple reasons why this won't pass. Number one, first and foremost, is the lobbying effort that will be thrown at it to stop it from passing for the simple reason that selling locations now is profitable. If it wasn't, it wouldn't be happening. And these companies aren't going to just shrug off potentially losing a revenue stream. And in America, money talks. Rights get trampled when they stand in the way of profit.
Add in that the police and enforcement agencies, at every possible turn, are loudly and vociferously defending constantly probing *ALL* data, all the time, always, forever and ever, because it makes their jobs easier. And every single time there's a legitimate plan to curtail that practice, some idiot will start spouting "for the children" and talking about grooming and pedos and everybody will lose their god damned mind, assume this entire bill is about protecting pedos, and start protesting the shit out of it.
This is America. We don't tolerate attempting to protect people's right to privacy. ESPECIALLY not if there's a potential profit loss from it.
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Sadly, you are 100% correct on all points. What's worse, is too many people who are either totally fine with it, or worst of the worst, actually encourage it upon hearing "it's for your own protection" much less "think of the children"
"Protect me, mommy government," has basically become a mantra for people after 9/11. How we think trampling the shit out of our rights in order to increase surveillance powers and corporate profits is protecting us I have yet to figure out.
Re: Sounds great (Score:3)
Re: Sounds great (Score:4, Interesting)
Has the MA governor given any indication that she would veto it? MA is an extremely blue state with basically a supermajority in the legislature and the governors office. They can do what they want and I imagine if the governor was openly opposed to it they basically wouldn't send it to her desk.
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On June 7, 2021, Musico called for his case to be dismissed, arguing entrapment by federal authorities and the confidential informant and claiming he would not have associated himself with Fox without police interference. He also claimed the informant led the training sessions for the Wolverine Watchmen; an FBI agent said in March that he instructed the informant to take on a leadership role during those sessions to prevent suspects from getting injured and thus requiring a law enforcement response while the Wolverine Watchmen were armed.[163][99] Attorneys for Morrison and Bellar later similarly called for the case's dismissal due to entrapment. However, on March 1, 2022, a Jackson County judge denied the motion to dismiss.[164] On October 26, 2022, Bellar, Morrison and Musico were convicted of materially aiding a terrorist and being a member of a gang as part of a plot to kidnap Gov. Whitmer.[59] Bellar was sentenced to 20 years in prison with a minimum of seven to serve; Morrison to 20 years with a minimum of 10 to serve; and Musico to 20 years with a minimum of 12 to serve.
So looks like that was argued by defense attorneys, who can be expected to argue anything they can in this situation..but it didn't get anywhere.
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When I was a child I was acquainted with a man that got busted by the FBI During Janet Reno's tenure in the early nineties. He was part of a group that had made a video tape on how to take down buildings, walking around publicly accessible buildings and talking about structures. Since some of the most publicly-accessible buildings were government buildings, those were what they used for their examples. They were shortly thereafter infiltrated by the FBI, but unlike this recent case in Michigan where the
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It's even easier to pass through the legislature if everyone knows it'll ultimately be killed by someone else. They can all claim they voted the right way, but it's someone else's fault that it didn't work o
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That could be true but it's not happened yet and plenty of good things in states have been passed before.
Generally sending bills knowing they will be killed by the executive is a tactic employed when you have a contentious or opposing party legislature as it's political strategy and good fodder when election season rolls around.
When you have a trifecta there's a fair amount of coordination, the legislators know what to expect so in that case incentives are aligned to pass bills and avoid infighting. Not th
Not enough (Score:2)
There should be data deletion requirements.
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Baby, bathwater. (Score:1)
But the data has may uses [carto.com] like urban planning [mit.edu], and other social issues. [esri.com] Even autonomous vehicles. [semiengineering.com]
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The only data that should be available (Score:1)
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As soon as someone used it to prove vote manipulation/fraud is occurring on a large scale then they don't want anyone to have access. Was all fun and games when they were just making money off it but can't have anyone looking under the rug :P
Dafuq are you talking about?
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Well, he stated "...someone...", "...they...", and "...anyone...". What else do we need for a rousing Slashdot political discussion?
I want to charge them a subscription. (Score:3)
Just like everything else they want to release once and keep charging forever, I want them to pay a subscription to keep my user data and use it for marketing, and for as long as they keep it in their database, I expect to be paid.
I provide "constant updates" to improve my marketing data. So, yeah, fork it over. If it's a good deal then it's a good deal for both sides.
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You already are.
In exchange for your location data, you get "free" navigation apps and location-aware technology. Remember once upon a time when you had to actually *buy* software? It's not actually free these days, you just pay for it in a different way than you used to.
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You already are.
In exchange for your location data, you get "free" navigation apps and location-aware technology.
We made need to define free. I know I paid easily over 1000$ for a device that was location aware, able to GPS my location and a host of other sensors, I pay for a subscription for data on it, which these ;pieces of software then use with implicit consent. I thought when I bought the expensive box with software on it, I was also paying for the software. I'm pretty confident for each phone say, samsung sells that comes with android, there is money exchanged between the companies, from which they derived from
If a private citizen did this (Score:1)