Cell Phone Tracking Reveals Users' Habits

DinkyDogg writes "'New research that makes creative use of sensitive location-tracking data from 100,000 cellphones in Europe suggests that most people can be found in one of just a few locations at any time, and that they do not generally go far from home.' More interesting than their conclusion, however, is how they got their data. 'The researchers said they used the potentially controversial data only after any information that could identify individuals had been scrambled. Even so, they wrote, people's wanderings are so subject to routine that by using the patterns of movement that emerged from the research, "we can obtain the likelihood of finding a user in any location." The researchers were able to obtain the data from a European provider of cellphone service that was obligated to collect the information. By agreement with the company, the researchers did not disclose the country where the provider operates.' Any guesses which European country requires cell phone providers to record where their customers make calls, and then allows them to give that data away without disclosing that they have done so?"

Comments

Is that really so surprising?

[jawtheshark]

My typical day is: wake up, shower, go to work, be at work 8h (I don't go out for lunch), go back home, cook, eat, relax, sleep. That adds up to 2 places where I'll be, and anywhere on the highway to work. Add in grocery shopping in one of the two nearby supermarkets and you pretty much know where I'll be on any given day Monday to Friday.

On weekends it might be a bit more complex because I go to the recycling centre, eventually visit my parents or my wifes parents, go to a restaurant, the movies, but even then.... What is it going to add up to? A dozen places?

This only proves that we're routine-animals. That's all....

Re:Is that really so surprising?

[Z00L00K]

My guess is that even dogs like to come out finding new tracks and sniffing new scents. I would hardly define that to cause a neurotic dog. Being utterly bored is on the other hand a cause for neurotic dogs and also humans.

But when you are in your home ground you can quickly start habits and tracks that you are comfortable with.

A more interesting application of the cell phone tracking is actually that it can give planners a better understanding of the travel patterns for people. This in turn can be turned into effective public transportation, better road planning etc.

From a historical point of view it is understandable that humans do have very fixed patterns. If you know the terrain then you know where the threats may be and where to find food & other good things in life. This is why we feel awkward as soon as our favorite store remodels and currently all aisles are changed or placed in new directions.

Of course - if we were to live in an ever-changing world we would adapt to that too.

There's data, then there's data

[HangingChad]

Contrary to what the paper suggests, the data has not been anonymized.

You're exactly right. Give me access to cell phone location data and I'll be able to identify the individuals. If they know people don't wander far from home, then they know where home is. And where work is. It'll take all of ten minutes to add a name to a pattern of behavior. The concern becomes a group that lacks collective conscience...like the Bush administration....starts using anonymous data to look for suspicious patterns of behavior. Justifying the surveillance by suggesting that they're not spying on individuals, merely looking for suspicious patterns. Sound familiar?

Then think about how that could be abused. I was watching a news story about a local anti-terror exercise that involved the feds and local law enforcement. The DHS spokesperson actually said that any criminal activity can be used to support terrorism so anti-terror exercises get muddled together with law enforcement. Every criminal is a potential terrorist. It's happening in the banking industry. The monitoring provisions were put in place to look for terrorist activity, but now banks are reporting any suspicious transactions down to $1,000. Anyone think Elliot Spitzer was a terrorist? The monitoring program that netted him was put in place to monitor for terrorists but once it became obvious Spitzer was not funneling money to Al Qaida, the investigation continued under the mantle of law enforcement. Okay, so law enforcement starts monitoring cell phone GPS data looking for suspicious patterns of behavior, at first looking for terrorists, but since any crime potentially supports terrorism, it starts getting more widespread and granular. Going to a particular street in a particular part of town...like a mosque...could flag you. Sending money to a family member overseas or just being in the vicinity when a crime takes place. Maybe law enforcement starts using cellular GPS data to locate potential witnesses. Want to explain to the boss why the cops showed up and wanted to know if you saw anything while visiting the "entertainment" district last night?

The anonymous element is an intellectual dodge. There's nothing anonymous about your pattern of behavior, it's as unique as a fingerprint. This is real 1984 kind of stuff.

I'm more afraid of widespread monitoring than terrorism. Once you start chipping away at the edges of privacy it's hard to get back. And, right now, we're paying billions of our tax dollars to create an agency that regularly pounds our right to privacy with a sledgehammer.