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Wolfie Christl Profile picture
@WolfieChristl
Mar 11, 2021 • 12 tweets • 5 min read • Read on X
T-Mobile US says it will start selling web+device usage data to the digital profiling industry by default.

But don't worry it's not tied to your name but only to personal identifiers that are much more suitable to track and follow you everywhere anyway.
t-mobile.com/privacy-center… Image
Telecommunication services are basic digital infrastructure, and they should not be allowed to sell behavioral data at all.

It's bad enough if they trick people into 'opting in', selling it by default is beyond bad.

Such reckless and irresponsible business practices must end.
Also, T-Mobile US owns PushSpring, a consumer data broker that trades in extensive mobile data on hundreds of millions of people without their knowledge.
"We may also share mobile device identifiers, device and service usage data, and demographics information with third-party advertising partners..."

"These third parties have their own privacy notices that apply to their use of the information we share" Image
Personal/identifiable data they sell may include the websites visited, the apps used and the time spent using them, data about the "use of products and services", and data on movements based on the "location of cell towers serving your device".
t-mobile.com/privacy-center… Image
While they claim to exploit 'precise location data' based on cell tower triangulation only based on opt-in, it is not clear to me whether they use it to make individual-level inferences without opt-in.
Telcos: "But Google and FB are also basic infrastructure and they're allowed to exploit personal information at scale, that's unfair"

Yep, this is why we should ban infrastructure-level services by platform giants from exploiting personal data for profit.
In other news, T-Mobile NL has been sharing pseudonymous location data with the Dutch statistical agency for years, without the public's knowledge.

I think statistical agencies have an important role in public-interest data processing, but that's a no go.
nrc.nl/nieuws/2021/03…
In 2018, T-Mobile US and others were caught selling exact location data for non-advertising purposes. Their CEO publicly 'pledged' that T-Mobile US won't sell to 'shady middlemen' anymore. Which was not true.
washingtonpost.com/news/the-switc…
fiercewireless.com/regulatory/t-m…
And it seems that 'opting out' doesn't even work:
Sadly, the chatbot on the website of T-Mobile US' mobile data broker subsidiary PushSpring didn't answer my question about whether they would sell profile data on EU devices, even though they promised to be back in 3 hours.

Bad customer service! Image

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More from @WolfieChristl

Wolfie Christl Profile picture
Sep 5
I took another look at Snowden docs that mention browser/cookie IDs.

It's breathtaking how the surveillance marketing industry has still managed to claim for many years that unique personal IDs processed in the web browser are somehow 'anonymous', and sometimes still does.
Another 2011 doc indicates that the GCHQ operated a kind of probabilistic ID graph that aims to link cookie/browser IDs, device IDs, email addresses and other 'target detection identifiers' (TDIs) based on communication, timing and geolocation behavior:
Btw. What inspired me to revisit these docs is @ByronTau's book Means of Control, which not only details how US agencies buy commercial data from digital marketing but also provides deep historical context, tracing back to early-2000s debates on Total Information Awareness (TIA).
Read 19 tweets
Wolfie Christl Profile picture
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…
Image
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
Wolfie Christl Profile picture
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
Wolfie Christl Profile picture
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
Wolfie Christl Profile picture
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…
Image
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…
Image
Read 30 tweets
Wolfie Christl Profile picture
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
Image
"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

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