This is an interesting and important read. Interesting because it documents an event that many witnessed and continues to be a high profile news item. Important because as you read the story the extent to which individuals are being tracked from their mobile phone data. In this case, the surveillance of a class of terrorists allows them to be identified and held responsible. We are all under the same level of scrutiny, and our data is already exposed to corporations and government regimes.
“The data presented here is a bird’s-eye view of an event that posed a clear and grave threat to our democracy. But it tells a second story as well: One of a broken, surreptitious industry in desperate need of regulation, and of a tacit agreement we’ve entered into that threatens our individual privacy. None of this data should ever have been collected.”
NY Times Opinion Feb 5 2021
“Unlike the data we reviewed in 2019, this new data included a remarkable piece of information: a unique ID for each user that is tied to a smartphone. This made it even easier to find people, since the supposedly anonymous ID could be matched with other databases containing the same ID, allowing us to add real names, addresses, phone numbers, email addresses and other information about smartphone owners in seconds.”
NY Times Opinion Feb 5 2021
“The IDs, called mobile advertising identifiers, allow companies to track people across the internet and on apps. They are supposed to be anonymous, and smartphone owners can reset them or disable them entirely. Our findings show the promise of anonymity is a farce. Several companies offer tools to allow anyone with data to match the IDs with other databases.”
NY Times Opinion Feb 5 2021
“The location-tracking industry exists because those in power allow it to exist. Plenty of Americans remain oblivious to this collection through no fault of their own. But many others understand what’s happening and allow it anyway. They feel powerless to stop it or were simply seduced by the conveniences afforded in the trade-off. The dark truth is that, despite genuine concern from those paying attention, there’s little appetite to meaningfully dismantle this advertising infrastructure that undergirds unchecked corporate data collection.”
NY Times Opinion Feb 5 2021
Read the full, detailed and illustrated article here on the NYTimes: They Stormed the Capitol. Their Apps Tracked Them.