An MIT researcher states, "Phones can know. People can get this god's eye view of human behavior." Cell phones collect much more data than we are aware. Of course, we know that phone companies keep track of our location based on cell towers so that we can be routed to the closest/optimum one when moving about a city, but there is a wealth of data that our personal devices also collects. Not only is data, text, and voice usage recorded, but at times even our phone's GPS sensors, camera, light sensors, and gyroscopes kick into gear to record your personal movements and behaviors throughout the day. "Researchers are already exploring ways that the information gleaned from mobile phones can improve public health, urban planning and marketing"
Below are a few excerpts from the article of how this data can be used:
"At Northeastern University in Boston, network physicists discovered just how predictable people could be by studying the travel routines of 100,000 European mobile-phone users. After analyzing more than 16 million records of call date, time and position, the researchers determined that, taken together, people's movements appeared to follow a mathematical pattern. The scientists said that, with enough information about past movements, they could forecast someone's future whereabouts with 93.6% accuracy."
"And back at MIT, scientists who tracked student cellphones during the latest presidential election were able to deduce that two people were talking about politics, even though the researchers didn't know the content of the conversation. By analyzing changes in movement and communication patterns, researchers could also detect flu symptoms before the students themselves realized they were getting sick."
"Just by watching where you spend time, I can say a lot about the music you like, the car you drive, your financial risk, your risk for diabetes. If you add financial data, you get an even greater insight," said Dr. Pentland. "We are trying to understand the molecules of behavior in this really complete way."
Very interesting read, especially given the iPhone tracking debacle that's been getting a lot of press as of late. While I think it's fascinating that people can determine certain things about people just by looking at their phone states, it kind of unnerves me as well - call me paranoid, but I can't shake the feeling that all this data collection could end up using for some very Orwellian means. I understand it's a great tool, but I'd very much prefer to be given the option to opt out of this kind of thing.
ReplyDeleteWell thats just scary. I had known that they keep transcripts of all calls and texts and such but i didn't know about all of the other data that they have recorded. the most shocking to me is that they are recording the gyroscopic data from the iphone. That seems like data that would be useless or difficult to interpret. the only thing that comes to mind is using the accelerometer to measure accelerating and decelerating on highways to map traffic patterns in real time based off of people phones. that would be pretty cool...
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