
Hyde Park visitors tracked via mobile phone data - Turukawa
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/dec/25/hyde-park-visitors-tracked-mobile-phone-data-ee
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gpvos
The data seems to be well anonymized and aggregated and with a 4-week delay,
so I don't think I would object to this.

A related article linked at the bottom, _London garden bridge users to have
mobile phone signals tracked_ ( [http://www.theguardian.com/uk-
news/2015/nov/06/garden-bridge...](http://www.theguardian.com/uk-
news/2015/nov/06/garden-bridge-mobile-phone-signals-tracking-london) ),
signals something more troubling, as people there will be tracked individually
and real-time.

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gpvos
On second thought: this is the first time I've read about a cellular provider
using triangulation to find out the precise location of a user. It is not
something I expect to be necessary for their own business purposes; for that,
it should suffice to know which cell tower a user is connected to, and the
data does not need to be stored as it is ephemeral.

I would worry about this precise location data (edit: or even the imprecise
data) to be marketed or used for anything except maybe law enforcement, and I
also wonder why it is stored at all. If it is stored because of data retention
regulations, and the provider wants to market this data, even if anonymized, I
would see that as a problem, because other parts of society would start to
expect, and depend on, such data to be available, perpetuating this data
retention.

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gruez
> I would worry about this precise location data to be marketed or used for
> anything except maybe law enforcement, and I also wonder why it is stored at
> all. If it is stored because of data retention regulations, and the provider
> wants to market this data, even if anonymized, I would see that as a
> problem, because other parts of society would start to expect, and depend
> on, such data to be available, perpetuating this data retention.

Already happening in the US. As said in another comment, airsage is one such
company.

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sitkack
Airsage does this for the entire USA for all time.

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hellbanner
So the homeless without cell phones don't fit into this? Interesting.

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gpvos
Many, if not most homeless do have cellphones.

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nether
What a boring dystopia.

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HappyTypist
I am OK with this if I ge tto opt out.

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pasbesoin
I suppose it says something that, based on the title, I assumed this was going
to be about surveillance in the Obamas' home neighborhood on the south side of
Chicago.

Government. Commercial. Here. There. It's ubiquitous.

