How Telecoms Sell Your Private Info to the Highest Bidder

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/how-telecoms-sell-your-private-info-highest-bidder



Have you ever lost your mobile phone and been able to find it through your wireless company’s GPS tracking service? Or have you signed up for a family locator program to check on where your kids are through their phones? If so, you’ve voluntarily entered the world of telco tracking. Unfortunately, these are but the most innocent tracking programs that wireless companies like AT&T and Verizon are engaged in.

Every seven seconds or so, one’s wireless company tracks your position vis-à-vis the nearest cell tower, determining not only your location but how long your call lasts. What a phone company does with this data, let alone with all the other information it gathers, remains the company’s secret.

Earlier this year, Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA) revealed that, in 2011, state and local law enforcement agencies had received approximately 1.3 million records from the nation’s wireless carriers. A wireless customer’s personal information provided to law enforcement entities is fairly comprehensive. It includes geo-locational or GPS data, 911 call responses, text message content, billing records, wiretaps, “ping” location and what are known as cell tower “dumps” (i.e., a carrier provides all the phones numbers of cell users that connect with a discrete tower during a discrete period of time).

Equally insidious, these same wireless providers are aggressively collecting and reselling your usage data. The most widely used method is through a special GPS geo-location program offered by Carrier IQ known as CIQ.

[lalalu]

1. I have an unlisted landline number.

I notice whenever I call someone on their cell phone my number gets further compromised. It seems I get an increase in unsolicited calls. A coincidence maybe but I doubt it. At this point our personal data and movements are out there for anyone. I love technology but there is a downside to everything.

The movie 'Minority Report" is closer than we think. I could really be in trouble for some of the things I have thought about doing to annoying neighbors.

[Live and Learn]

2. As if law enforcement tracking wasn't bad enough,

now the insurance companies are using phones to track us. This really is quite frightening.

[hobbit709]

3. That's why I use a Tracfone.

Whenever I need to add airtime, I pay cash for a card at the store. I never give out my cell phone number-only about a dozen people have it. Tracfone itself doesn't have my name or home phone number.

[Live and Learn]

4. That won't stop law enforcement.

Note the paragraph about the drug dealer using the pay as you go phone. They could get your number from one of the dozen friends you gave it to that do have a cell phone and then demand the info for your number from tracfone. At least it is a bit more work for them.

[hobbit709]

5. If they're already on to you at that level, you have major problems.