Wolfie Christl Profile picture
Jul 29, 2019 4 tweets 3 min read Read on X
Google data collection as disclosed in their privacy policies 1999-2019, according to the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission's 'Digital Platforms Inquiry' report.
@wavesblog Btw. In 2012, Google merged 60 product privacy policies into one and started to openly combine user data across different services.

...perhaps the single most important 'policy' change that made Google the pervasive surveillance machine it is today: computerworld.com/article/250035…
@wavesblog The second most important of Google's 'policy' changes was perhaps the addition of this single sentence highlighted in green in 2016.

Or, as Slate wrote in October 2016: "Google changed a major privacy policy four months ago, and no one really noticed" (slate.com/technology/201…).

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More from @WolfieChristl

Jul 16
Die digitale Werbeindustrie verkauft Smartphone-Standortdaten und Bewegungsprofile von Millionen Menschen in Deutschland, darunter Privatpersonen und sensibles Personal.

Große Recherche von und BR, die einen riesigen Datensatz als "Muster" erhalten haben. netzpolitik.org


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Sie haben Menschen identifiziert, die Entzugskliniken, Swinger-Clubs oder Bordelle besucht haben, aber auch Personal von Ministerien, Bundeswehr, BND, Polizei.

Die Recherche auf netzpolitik (7 Artikel):


Visuell aufbereitet vom BR:
netzpolitik.org/tag/databroker…
interaktiv.br.de/ausspioniert-m…
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Fast alle Smartphone-Apps sind heute mit zwielichtigen Datensammeltechnologien "verwanzt".

Völlig unkontrollierte Datenmarktplätze, u.a. die Firma Datarade mit Sitz in Berlin, bieten Standort- und andere Verhaltensdaten über ganze Bevölkerungen aus vielen Ländern zum Verkauf an.
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Read 12 tweets
May 30
So, Microsoft exploits activity data from Outlook, Teams, Word etc across customers for its own promotional purposes, including on meetings, file usage and the seconds until emails are read.

Aggregate analysis but based on massive personal data processing
microsoft.com/en-us/worklab/…

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Microsoft states that the analysis on the seconds until emails were read excludes EU data. Activity data from Outlook, Teams, Word etc, however, seems to include EU data.

What's their legal basis? This is also personal data on employees. And, are business customers fine with it?
Should cloud-based software vendors exploit personal data on users of their services, including private persons and employees of business customers, how they see fit?

I don't think so.

Not even for public-interest research, at least not without academic process and IRB review.
Read 4 tweets
Feb 29
Some more findings from our investigation of LiveRamp's ID graph system (), which maintains identity records about entire populations in many countries, including name, address, email and phone, and aims to link these records with all kinds of digital IDs:crackedlabs.org/en/identity-su…
Identity data might seem boring, but if a company knows all kinds of identifying info about everyone, from home address to email to device IDs, it is in a powerful position to recognize persons and link profile data scattered across many databases, and this is what LiveRamp does.
LiveRamp aims to provide clients with the ability to recognize a person who left some digital trace in one context as the same person who later left some trace elsewhere.

It has built a sophisticated system to do this, no matter how comprehensive it can recognize the person.
Read 12 tweets
Nov 14, 2023
As part of our new report on RTB as a security threat and previously unreported, we reveal 'Patternz', a private mass surveillance system that harvests digital advertising data on behalf of 'national security agencies'.

5 billion user profiles, data from 87 adtech firms. Thread: Image
'Patternz' in the report by @johnnyryan and me published today:


Patternz is operated by a company based in Israel and/or Singapore. I came across it some time ago, received internal docs. Two docs are available online.

Some more details in this thread. iccl.ie/wp-content/upl…
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Here's how Patternz can be used to track and profile individuals, their location history, home address, interests, information about 'people nearby', 'co-workers' and even 'family members', according to information available online:

isasecurity.org/patternz
web.archive.org/web/2021062210…
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Read 30 tweets
Nov 6, 2023
, a 'social risk intelligence platform' that provides digital profiles about named individuals regarding financial strain, food insecurity, housing instability etc for healthcare purposes.

Incredibly intrusive, horrifying that this can exist in the US. sociallydetermined.com
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"It calculates risk scores for each risk domain for each person", according to the promotional video, and offers "clarity and granularity for the entire US".

Not redlining, though. They color it green. Image
Making decisions based on these metrics about individuals and groups seems to be highly questionable and irresponsible bs.

Safegraph, a shady location data firm, is among the data providers:
safegraph.com/customers/soci…
Read 6 tweets
Oct 16, 2023
Bazze, a US data broker that purchases smartphone location data from mobile apps and advertising firms, and sells to the US Dept of Defense, according to the WSJ (), openly promotes a commercial location mass surveillance system for 'government customers'. wsj.com/tech/cybersecu…
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I extracted information about mobile location data they claim to sell per country from their website:


Japan: 920m records, 5.5m devices
Brazil: 370m records, 6.3m devices
Australia: 280m records, 1.7m devices

...and data on people in 200 other countries. bazze.io/cdi
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explains that it does not 'collect or sell data from individuals within the United States, Canada, and European Economic Area countries'.

So, global commercial location data except US/Canada/Europe, for national security (and finance, as a side business). bazze.io

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Read 19 tweets

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