Layers upon layers, the data we share

We hear a lot about security this and security that.  Big companies letting loose big sets of our personal data.  By now, your data is likely on the dark web.  You might want to look into that.  New dark web protection companies are popping up.

We install special programs and use secure sites to protect our information.  When it comes to our phones, we give away the farm when it comes to personal data.

It’s more than that however.  Where you share your story is 90% of the battle to keep your private live private.

EULAs

I came up with the title for this post about a week ago.  Privacy, Personal Information and Personal Habits are all up for grabs.

What authorizes these applications to collect this information? EULAs or End User License Agreements are where it starts.

Service providers may have to give you the option to “allow” this collection.  It seems that often, opting out means…

<with a funny movie style Italian bad guy accent:  “you don’t get it, capiche?” >

Apps are asking for more data.  Fast Food, Insurance (Snapshot anyone?) and more are asking us to grant access to private data.  We already have OnStar, Google and others collecting our location data.  Automotive gadgets anyone?

Everybody is in on it.  The cellphone provider, internet provider, applications and searches engines.  All hungry for data.

The Data Collection story intro:

Data collection is running rampant.  Data by itself may have no value.  It may have cost associated with it.  Value is determined by the information the data provides.  You write down a list of numbers from 1 to 10.  You have a, wait for it, list of numbers.  Pick any number and you get, a number.  If you add a name next to each number.  Now that number is, a number, yes but also the record id of the name next to the number.  As the complexity of the dataset grows, the value of volume of information increases.

Minimizing Your Footprint

First Pay in cash…

…and leave your phone at home or take the battery out.  Maybe not your thing but it reduces your footprint on the grid.

We have all been using “applications” for a while now.  We are conditioned to “click yes” because if we object to the license, we do not get the use of the product.

Pay by phone?

With every transaction, your financial institution and others gather all those tidbits you clicked yes on…

• Your GPS location
• What establishment
• Items purchased
• How much was spent

…are all gathered up.  Don’t forget that if you used an application, you are providing additional details about yourself.

An example would be walking into a fast food restaurant and paying in cash.  The data collected?  Not much.

For the restaurant:

• Walk-in customer
• Meal #3 sold
• Amount paid
• Payment Type :Cash, Debit or Credit Card

Using a Card Adds:

• Your name
• Card number
• Amount spent
• Financial Institution
• Approval Status

Finally the Financial Institution receives:

• Amount Spent
• Retail or Service Establishment.

Here, what data can be collected is controlled by your agreement with the financial institution.  Now, add in your phone.  Most of the installed applications are gathering data all the time.  For example, a competing fast food restaurant’s application is also installed on your phone.  Looking at the data collected by their application, they see that you are visiting their competitor.

How?  Allowing the application access to your GPS data may give you better deals and application location sensing.  This setting usually gives the user a better “in store” experience. A grocery store chain’s application maintains local store maps that are geo-integrated.  Look up a product and you know the aisle number and aisle location (odd, even, row and span).  In a hurry for dinner items at a store you don’t know?  The location assist is a useful feature.

From the business side, this is strategic data and it allows refines market targeting data to a finer grain.  From the healthcare side, that “health application” you installed likely had a request for location access.  Often allowing access adds a desirable feature for client access.

Companies are already using personal employee health records to improve employee health as part of an overall health and wellness strategy.  Usually, companies doing this provide company phones to their employees.  With the “Health Application” already installed with company settings.

Data collection is a large topic and will be the topic of future blogs.  Some simple strategies to reduce your footprint?

• Don’t install the application

Be choosy.  Do you really need the latest iPay, QuickPay or Deal of the Day feature?

• Only click on the “yes” for Allow Location when you are using the application and then click it off before closing it.

This helps and for many of the applications, it dramatically slows down the collection.  This adds additional steps.  Additional steps or one click convenience?  You decide.

Google and Facebook are the great collectors of data and they depend on it for billions in revenue.  Amazon and Microsoft fill out the field.  The current internet is analogous to the Net Work Television dominance and has significantly changed how we obtain services, products, discounts, and so forth.  That was the old guard.  Finally, add in all of the devices and their various providers.   Data, data everywhere.

What’s interesting about the new “information class” is that it is finally a two way data stream from company to customer.  This is the ultimate in marketing and we, the day to day users, are the product that gets sold.  To our benefit, we get greater convenience.  Groceries delivered to our door now complete with pre-measured ingredients and recipes.  We got the text  that the refrigerator had placed the refill order automatically.

In the first place, I really don’t want someone else picking out my food.  Yes, yes, hollow argument as the food has already been “handled” many times.  Yet, touching, looking and smelling the food I am going to eat is important to me.  I digress.  We give up data all the time in order to use the latest or get the best deal.  Sometimes that use is warranted.  On the whole, probably not.

EULAs impact you every time you say yes.  Your phone is an angel and demon on your shoulder.  The phone is the data collection device that those “yes” questions enabled.  Even a phone without a SIM card collects data.  That GPS that keeps you from being lost?  Tracks every step you take.  Hmmm…sounds like lyrics…

My Phone

I remember the days when my phone was in my home.  It had an answering machine so I wasn’t completely in the dark ages, but calls would come in, be recorded and I would hear about it when I got home.  My contacts knew to leave a priority to their message if it was important.  Many of the messages were handled later in face to face conversations.  You would get messages or calls at work.

Then came the beepers.  To some they were a blessing and to others a curse.  Beepers going off meant a “now” event.  The definition of the event depended on the person and the role the beeper played.

Mobile phones took the pagers place.  Now, cellphones and tablets often take the place of a personal computer.

Your phone is a data collector.  Where you have been, what you bought, and even your credit rating is constantly being collected.  This is on top of all of your personal information you’ve added to your phone.

Every application added increases your digital footprint

Pay by phone?

Talk to a device in your home?

Data, data and more data.  I get it, convenient, secure, and fast. Those parts are great.  It’s the other data that’s a problem.  The solution?  Pay cash.   What’s paid in cash stays in cash.

Your phone is an advanced computer.  Any IoT device you add is also a computer and data collector.  What you add is your choice.  Read the EULA at least once.  There may be some data ownership questions you might want to get legal advice.

Google, Facebook et al

Are the Network 24s of today (ref; Max Headroom).  Algorithms and market share are their goals.  Predictive analytics and AI are the tools.  Big data solved the collection problem.  End users tools were created to handle large sets of data to be analyzed.  The analysis lead to better filters and predictive analytics to turn the search bar into one stop shopping for anything.  Convenience.

Google and its like are cultivators of data.  We, as consumers are the products, providing a wealth of data.  Largely, without our knowledge because we already gave our consent.  Hey, we wanted that hamburger, fries and drink for three bucks.  Cut the line with curbside delivery.  Convenience.

You think Google is just a search engine.  It is so nice to just enter “sour dough recipes” and get the results we want.  In that case, likely, you will.  That is what we want Google to do.  With all the technology underneath the data, data is filtered out.

It is a wrap

A brief dive into areas I feel that are important to explore and understand.  As consumers of these services we constantly share our personal information.  Often information we are not aware of.  Something as simple as your fast food choice and pattern. This may one day impact your health insurance.  I can see it now,  HealthCo:<insurance company>ProDiet… “save on health insurance today.  Connects to most grocery and restaurant applications.  Don’t forget to take advantage of our ‘All Organic‘ and ‘Health Diet‘ discounts.  Restrictions apply.  Check your policy for details.”

The barrage of requests has desensitized the us to the importance of the agreements we sign.  When a computer program is installed, you sign or accept the license agreement.  Did you read it?  Websites also function under a similar model.  The applications on your phone?  Same deal.  Usually these agreements are long and legal.  The have to be.  You are releasing information that is your right to keep private.  By controlling what information you do and don’t release allows you to manage your internet profile.