Increasingly in the modern world, companies have access to huge amounts of data about us: where your phone connects to cell towers, which websites you visit. But how much can this reveal about us?
To test this out, ABC reporter Will Ockenden got access to his phone company's metadata, which contains information on the cell tower that his phone connected to, the date/timestamp, and the type of connection (internet, phone or SMS). Combining this data with the longitude and latitude of the phone towers, we can find out a lot about him.
What insights have we gleaned?
I created a dashboard to visualise Will's data. You can interact with this dashboard to draw your own insights. But here are a few things I was able to pick out:
- Will moved to Manly in Sydney (near the Balgowlah Hayes Street cell tower in September 2014). This tower has the most pings, especially outside of regular work hours.
- He most likely works in Chippendale, since towers in this area have the most pings between 9 AM and 5 PM Monday to Friday.
- He visited Hobert, Tasmania over the Christmas period in 2014. He flew in from Sydney Kingsford Smith International Airport. He has made several visits over the course of the year; quite possibly, this is where his family lives.
Conclusion
Companies having access to our data has started to feel very normal, so it's easy to be blasé. But if you stop think just how much these companies can learn about us – where we live, where we work, where are families live – it can start to feel quite invasive. I made this dashboard over the course of one day, which means all this information only took that long to find out.
This is why data protection laws are important. This is only phone data; with access to our social media, our financial transactions, our travel data, someone in a room somewhere could learn pretty much everything about us. And that's not necessarily a terrible thing, all of the time. But let's say a new government is elected and, as a completely random example, decide to start deporting people willy-nilly, or treating protestors as terrorists. The government having access to all this information about you can be actively dangerous.
If you take anything away from Will Ockenden's data, let it be this: data is a very powerful tool in the right hands, and a dangerous one in the wrong hands. We should all have the right to control how information about us is being accessed and traded!