4 ms·

The sale of location data by carriers is a USA specific phenomenon afaik.

• ng55QPSK 6y ago
  At the moment.
  • dtx1 6y ago
    No, in the EU it's a violation of your personal rights due to GDPR and in many EU Countries there are local laws that mirror this. This is very much an American failure to have democratic control over what large businesses do.
    • elric 6y ago
      Location data is being collected and sold by EU carriers. They just "anonymize" and/or aggregate the data before they sell it. And hey presto, it's suddenly "GDPR compliant". Of course we all know that no anonymized is ever really anonymous, and that aggregated data can be just as problematic. Couple of sources, in Dutch: https://tweakers.net/nieuws/118145/belgische-provider-proximus-verkoopt-locatiegegevens-gebruikers-voor-700-euro.html https://tweakers.net/nieuws/118145/belgische-provider-proxim... https://itdaily.be/nieuws/infrastructuur/proximus-orange-en-telenet-delen-locatiedata-voor-bestrijding-coronavirus/ https://itdaily.be/nieuws/infrastructuur/proximus-orange-en-...
      • dtx1 6y ago
        thank you! I just found out i can opt out of this and did. However, selling anonymized data is better then selling non-anonymized data. Nevertheless, these carriers and the people who think this is in any way shape or form even remotely ok deserve to be stood in front of a wall...
        • kamyarg 6y ago
          can you explain how you opted out please? Thank you
          • dtx1 6y ago
            i googled "anonymous data collection + $carrier + opt out" in german and they had a website
      • pfundstein 6y ago
        >no anonymized is ever really anonymous Here's an anonymized email address, please tell me how to de-anonymize it: <redacted>@gmail.com My point is that your hyperbolic statement is not true, and anonymization can be done correctly.
        • herbstein 6y ago
          Location data isn't anonymous if you can follow the tracks of a single person throughout a week. Because where a person spends the majority of their time -- at work and at home -- are very personally identifiable. Then it doesn't matter if the dataset has "John Doe" or "<random id>" as the user identifier. Don't believe "anonymous" data is shared like that? Look at what New York Times could do when purchasing one of these datasets. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/12/10/business/location-data-privacy-apps.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/12/10/business/loca...
        • Daho0n 6y ago
          Yes it's hyperbolic and home-brew encryption can be safe too. It just almost never happens. <redacted>@gmail.com + pfundstein is how it almost always fails.
• hansel_der 6y ago
  It's not afaik. idk if they sell user-specific data, but german operators DO at least sell agregate info from cell-tower usage.