6 ms·

City of London calls halt to smartphone tracking bins

100 points by evilstreak 13y ago

amirmc 13y ago
Note that it's the 'City of London Corporation' [1] that's called for a halt. The title at the moment implies that the authorities of London as a whole have gotten involved. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_London_Corporation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_London_Corporation
- TazeTSchnitzel 13y ago
  Yes. When most people say London they mean Greater London, not The City.
  - mitchty 13y ago
    Well we mean "The City known as London". Most people outside of those that live there wouldn't understand the difference between the history of Londinium and its founding all the way back to Roman times. And the "suburbs" if you will that most people would identify to be the city itself. It is much like most people don't always distinguish the boroughs of New York from the City of New York until they need to have a reason to. TLDR: I agree, and disagree simultaneously and think that the whole rats nest of London and who controls what with things like the "Mayor" to be... stereo-typically British for lack of a better term. :)
casca 13y ago
For those unaware, this is not "London" that's stopping the tracking bins, it's the City of London. This is the historical center and current financial district. It is ~1 square mile out of ~600 for the. There are all sorts of curiosities around the City - it is not governed like the other boroughs and is extremely wealthy in its own right. Conspiracy theorists have found much fodder in the City government and control. The current set of bins are claimed to all be in the City , but this move is not the end of of the tracking of people in London via their phones.
- jwilliams 13y ago
  Indeed, the same City of London that is surrounded by the "Ring of Steel"[1] - described as a "surveillance cordon" with almost half a million CCTV cameras. At the checkpoints police had near-carte-blanche to search any vehicle they liked. From a different era, granted, but a strange entity to be kicking up a fuss about privacy. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_of_steel_(London) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_of_steel_(London)
  - fnordfnordfnord 13y ago
    Wealthy people like to protect their personal privacy.
    - cinquemb 13y ago
      Makes me wonder what will happen when clothes, hats, glasses and etc start emitting electromagnetic interference that inhibits this vast system. There's gotta be money in that, eh?
      - fnordfnordfnord 13y ago
        Think of all the fun you can have too. You could potentially fake a person's electronic signature and then visit strange places.
        cinquemb 13y ago
        Kind of reminds me of Ghost in the Shell philosophy[0]: What good is electronic surveillance when people who can run scripts and programs to imitate other people to the point that it will be indistinguishable from the real thing? Thinking about this stuff gets me excited about the future. I'm deff going to be involved making stuff like this happen, haha. Edit: Already getting myself involved with it now… [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_Ghost_in_the_Shell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_Ghost_in_the_She...
da_n 13y ago
Do as I say, not as I do. (though not to say I approve of phone tracking).
ghostDancer 13y ago
Powerful bankers and lawyers do not like to be tracked, that is only good for the rest of us.
Tichy 13y ago
Am I the only one who finds that a bit silly? Perhaps the next step will be that we won't be allowed to look at other people on the street anymore, because we would gather too much information. What if I want to open a shop and count the pedestrians walking by at a potential location, will police swoop in to throw me in jail? I wouldn't be surprised if every smartphone with WLAN also "tracks" other people on the street - if it keeps a list of WLANs it recently encountered. Offering HotSpots would become troublesome, too. And what about the mobile networks, they already track the location of every one of us? Should only big companies be allowed to collect data?
- DanBC 13y ago
  > And what about the mobile networks, they already track the location of every one of us? Those companies are registered with the Data Protection people. They specify what data they are collecting, and why, and they are subject to regulations about what they can do with the data and how long they can keep the data. > What if I want to open a shop and count the pedestrians walking by at a potential location, will police swoop in to throw me in jail? You can count people. What you can't do is take an identifying piece of information about that person and store it.
  - Tichy 13y ago
    "Those companies are registered with the Data Protection people." And it's probably really easy for "the little man" to register with the Data Protection Agency? Or do you need lots of lawyers and lots of money?
    - adw 13y ago
      Every business of any size has to do it. Costs about $100. It's not hard.
      - Tichy 13y ago
        So for 100$ the recycling bins could be back on the street, if they credibly anonymize the data?
will118 13y ago
I keep seeing these Renew people dance around this whole "identifying information" thing. Maybe they clarified it somewhere along the line, but I read the quartz article and the one before. I can't think of anything more identifying that I carry than my MAC address(es). So say my MAC is 01:23:45:67:89:ab and Renew anonymizes this to "0001", clearly that's just as identifiable. I genuinely can't think of a reason to gather MAC addresses other than to use them for profiling. The human footfall/bean counter thing is great [1], but not worth any money to anyone. Seems more like a PoC... I don't know a lot about AI recognition but I'd have thought you could have a camera counting people fairly easily. I actually don't personally mind, I think it's fair game unless the government says it isn't - and then I can go back to just the worry of blackhats. So unless I'm very mistaken this Reveal/Orb company are either building profiles, plan to, or have a business plan [1] that is going nowhere big. [1] http://www.littlesheep-learning.co.uk/images/Tally_Counter.jpg http://www.littlesheep-learning.co.uk/images/Tally_Counter.j...
- ryusage 13y ago
  It seems pretty clear from the way they talk about it that they're tracking who sees each ad on each bin in exactly the same way google tracks who sees each ad on each web page. The obvious next step for such a technology is to show specific ads only when people who might care about them are nearby. It's pretty genius really - it would put them miles ahead of other physical ad companies, at least until the rest started doing it too. But yes, the obvious downside is that instead of worrying about google knowing everywhere you go on the internet, you now have companies that know everywhere you go physically as well.
tehwalrus 13y ago
1) Good. 2) who the hell wrote this article? "The UK and the EU have strict laws about mining personal data using cookies, which involves effectively installing a small monitoring device on people's phones or computers, but the process of tracking MAC codes leaves no trace on individuals' handsets." I'm sorry, what now? a small data file is not a "device." (answer: Joe Miller, apparently.)
- TazeTSchnitzel 13y ago
  Actually, a cookie could be considered a device, it would just be an unusual use of the word.
joshfraser 13y ago
How hypocritical. Governments love to limit companies from tracking data and talk about citizen privacy. Meanwhile, they're tracking everyone, everywhere they can.
bittercynic 13y ago
Sounds kind of like someone walking down the street repeatedly shouting out their name, and then getting offended that you write it down. Maybe you should just stop shouting your name.
ChuckMcM 13y ago
I figured it to be a publicity stunt, the bins are selling advertising, this gets their description and capabilities into the press. But it twigged an interesting idea (probably impractical) of a personal version of this device. It could give just watch for mac addresses (or bluetooth addresses) that got into range or stayed in range. If someone was following you in a car it might show up as continued presence of an unrecognized cell phone MAC address. If done right you could do "recognition" with Glass using cellphone MAC rather than facial. Not sure if that counts in the rules, but people do inadvertently carry around an ID tag with them that is broadcasting their identity to anything that knows how to ask for it.
- x0x0 13y ago
  Those cost $57. http://mobile.nytimes.com/blogs/bits/2013/08/02/a-cheap-spying-tool-with-a-high-creepy-factor/?from=global.home http://mobile.nytimes.com/blogs/bits/2013/08/02/a-cheap-spyi...
  - ChuckMcM 13y ago
    Yup pretty much, although for mobility reasons you'd want it to be battery powered. I was thinking more like re-purposing a late model Android handset. Root it, put a kernel on it which was designed for surveillance rather than telephony, have it spool to it's microSD drive and get analyzed each evening.

100 points by evilstreak 13y ago

Note that it's the 'City of London Corporation' [1] that's called for a halt. The title at the moment implies that the authorities of London as a whole have gotten involved. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_London_Corporation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_London_Corporation

TazeTSchnitzel 13y ago
Yes. When most people say London they mean Greater London, not The City.
- mitchty 13y ago
  Well we mean "The City known as London". Most people outside of those that live there wouldn't understand the difference between the history of Londinium and its founding all the way back to Roman times. And the "suburbs" if you will that most people would identify to be the city itself. It is much like most people don't always distinguish the boroughs of New York from the City of New York until they need to have a reason to. TLDR: I agree, and disagree simultaneously and think that the whole rats nest of London and who controls what with things like the "Mayor" to be... stereo-typically British for lack of a better term. :)

casca 13y ago

For those unaware, this is not "London" that's stopping the tracking bins, it's the City of London. This is the historical center and current financial district. It is ~1 square mile out of ~600 for the. There are all sorts of curiosities around the City - it is not governed like the other boroughs and is extremely wealthy in its own right. Conspiracy theorists have found much fodder in the City government and control. The current set of bins are claimed to all be in the City , but this move is not the end of of the tracking of people in London via their phones.

jwilliams 13y ago
Indeed, the same City of London that is surrounded by the "Ring of Steel"[1] - described as a "surveillance cordon" with almost half a million CCTV cameras. At the checkpoints police had near-carte-blanche to search any vehicle they liked. From a different era, granted, but a strange entity to be kicking up a fuss about privacy. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_of_steel_(London) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_of_steel_(London)
- fnordfnordfnord 13y ago
  Wealthy people like to protect their personal privacy.
  - cinquemb 13y ago
    Makes me wonder what will happen when clothes, hats, glasses and etc start emitting electromagnetic interference that inhibits this vast system. There's gotta be money in that, eh?
    - fnordfnordfnord 13y ago
      Think of all the fun you can have too. You could potentially fake a person's electronic signature and then visit strange places.
      - cinquemb 13y ago
        Kind of reminds me of Ghost in the Shell philosophy[0]: What good is electronic surveillance when people who can run scripts and programs to imitate other people to the point that it will be indistinguishable from the real thing? Thinking about this stuff gets me excited about the future. I'm deff going to be involved making stuff like this happen, haha. Edit: Already getting myself involved with it now… [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_Ghost_in_the_Shell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_Ghost_in_the_She...

da_n 13y ago

Do as I say, not as I do. (though not to say I approve of phone tracking).

ghostDancer 13y ago

Powerful bankers and lawyers do not like to be tracked, that is only good for the rest of us.

Tichy 13y ago

Am I the only one who finds that a bit silly? Perhaps the next step will be that we won't be allowed to look at other people on the street anymore, because we would gather too much information. What if I want to open a shop and count the pedestrians walking by at a potential location, will police swoop in to throw me in jail? I wouldn't be surprised if every smartphone with WLAN also "tracks" other people on the street - if it keeps a list of WLANs it recently encountered. Offering HotSpots would become troublesome, too. And what about the mobile networks, they already track the location of every one of us? Should only big companies be allowed to collect data?

DanBC 13y ago
> And what about the mobile networks, they already track the location of every one of us? Those companies are registered with the Data Protection people. They specify what data they are collecting, and why, and they are subject to regulations about what they can do with the data and how long they can keep the data. > What if I want to open a shop and count the pedestrians walking by at a potential location, will police swoop in to throw me in jail? You can count people. What you can't do is take an identifying piece of information about that person and store it.
- Tichy 13y ago
  "Those companies are registered with the Data Protection people." And it's probably really easy for "the little man" to register with the Data Protection Agency? Or do you need lots of lawyers and lots of money?
  - adw 13y ago
    Every business of any size has to do it. Costs about $100. It's not hard.
    - Tichy 13y ago
      So for 100$ the recycling bins could be back on the street, if they credibly anonymize the data?

will118 13y ago

I keep seeing these Renew people dance around this whole "identifying information" thing. Maybe they clarified it somewhere along the line, but I read the quartz article and the one before. I can't think of anything more identifying that I carry than my MAC address(es). So say my MAC is 01:23:45:67:89:ab and Renew anonymizes this to "0001", clearly that's just as identifiable. I genuinely can't think of a reason to gather MAC addresses other than to use them for profiling. The human footfall/bean counter thing is great [1], but not worth any money to anyone. Seems more like a PoC... I don't know a lot about AI recognition but I'd have thought you could have a camera counting people fairly easily. I actually don't personally mind, I think it's fair game unless the government says it isn't - and then I can go back to just the worry of blackhats. So unless I'm very mistaken this Reveal/Orb company are either building profiles, plan to, or have a business plan [1] that is going nowhere big. [1] http://www.littlesheep-learning.co.uk/images/Tally_Counter.jpg http://www.littlesheep-learning.co.uk/images/Tally_Counter.j...

ryusage 13y ago
It seems pretty clear from the way they talk about it that they're tracking who sees each ad on each bin in exactly the same way google tracks who sees each ad on each web page. The obvious next step for such a technology is to show specific ads only when people who might care about them are nearby. It's pretty genius really - it would put them miles ahead of other physical ad companies, at least until the rest started doing it too. But yes, the obvious downside is that instead of worrying about google knowing everywhere you go on the internet, you now have companies that know everywhere you go physically as well.

tehwalrus 13y ago

1) Good. 2) who the hell wrote this article? "The UK and the EU have strict laws about mining personal data using cookies, which involves effectively installing a small monitoring device on people's phones or computers, but the process of tracking MAC codes leaves no trace on individuals' handsets." I'm sorry, what now? a small data file is not a "device." (answer: Joe Miller, apparently.)

TazeTSchnitzel 13y ago
Actually, a cookie could be considered a device, it would just be an unusual use of the word.

joshfraser 13y ago

How hypocritical. Governments love to limit companies from tracking data and talk about citizen privacy. Meanwhile, they're tracking everyone, everywhere they can.

bittercynic 13y ago

Sounds kind of like someone walking down the street repeatedly shouting out their name, and then getting offended that you write it down. Maybe you should just stop shouting your name.

ChuckMcM 13y ago

I figured it to be a publicity stunt, the bins are selling advertising, this gets their description and capabilities into the press. But it twigged an interesting idea (probably impractical) of a personal version of this device. It could give just watch for mac addresses (or bluetooth addresses) that got into range or stayed in range. If someone was following you in a car it might show up as continued presence of an unrecognized cell phone MAC address. If done right you could do "recognition" with Glass using cellphone MAC rather than facial. Not sure if that counts in the rules, but people do inadvertently carry around an ID tag with them that is broadcasting their identity to anything that knows how to ask for it.

x0x0 13y ago
Those cost $57. http://mobile.nytimes.com/blogs/bits/2013/08/02/a-cheap-spying-tool-with-a-high-creepy-factor/?from=global.home http://mobile.nytimes.com/blogs/bits/2013/08/02/a-cheap-spyi...
- ChuckMcM 13y ago
  Yup pretty much, although for mobility reasons you'd want it to be battery powered. I was thinking more like re-purposing a late model Android handset. Root it, put a kernel on it which was designed for surveillance rather than telephony, have it spool to it's microSD drive and get analyzed each evening.