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Mobile Tracking Would Be Great, If It Weren’t Illegal. (What, Everything Has To Be Perfect With You?)
Unlike a “real” cell provider, the ping it sends is blank: It neither sends nor receives any actual data (it doesn’t capture cell phone calls, nor does it provide a cell phone service). Essentially, all it knows is that there is a cell phone nearby with a particular identification number and a certain signal strength to its transmitter. Add a couple more transmitters, and voila! Through the magic of triangulation, you can now know the exact position of that cell phone. But you won’t know the name of the owner—well, at least not yet.
The U.S. Supreme Court will be deciding a case that was argued last week considering whether Americans have a “reasonable expectation of privacy” in their locations when they are not inside their homes. In that case, the government, without a warrant, installed and monitored a GPS transmitter on a suspect’s car.
Although this mall technology might not identify specific individuals, it raises a bunch of privacy red flags. First, the instant the consumer identifies himself or herself anywhere in the mall (say, by using a credit or debit card to buy something), it is a trivial task to cross reference the cell phone data with the payment data and realize that the person hanging around outside the Victoria’s Secret dressing room was your 70-year-old neighbor.
Despite the fact that the mall security cameras are capturing some of this data, the ability of the proposed technology to “slice and dice” the data makes it creepier still. If you walked into a mall and there was a sign that said, “Hey, we are going to use your cell phone to collect information about where you are going in this mall, who you are hanging out with and where you are going next. Thank you and have a nice day,” I am sure you would be creeped out. As a retailer with locations in a mall, you have two choices. Don’t ask; don’t tell: Don’t ask the cell phone where it is (e.g., don’t collect the data) or don’t tell the customer that you are doing it. Personally, I vote for the former.
If you disagree with me, I’ll see you in court, buddy. If you agree with me, however, I would love to hear from you.
-Marc
November 23rd, 2011 at 10:40 am
Malls track shoppers…. It’s here…. street level data mining. Why should this information be confined to mega mall owners? I get it… personal privacy is gone…. But if our privacy as human beings is traceable by the UI of our cell phones… (And it is) all of us being tracked should have the information available. Street level data mining is very powerful, profitable and scary. A community consciousness needs to be implemented now. Large conglomerates collecting data on an individual bases and collectively leveraging our very movements for their own agendas… is simply exploitation.
November 28th, 2011 at 11:31 am
You have chosen an unfortunate example of “the person hanging around outside the Victoria’s Secret dressing room was your 70-year-old neighbor.” That is probably a reason why most people would AGREE that this kind of surveillance is necessary.
Why not make an argument using an example of someone doing something completely innocuous? Such as: “it is a trivial task to cross reference the cell phone data with the payment data and send a message to Store B that someone who just spent $1000 at Store A just walked in their door.”
February 8th, 2012 at 10:11 am
Mobile tracking isn’t necessarily illegal. You can track your family or vehicles to ensure their safety.