What your Phone say about you

While I was doing some reading at the weekend while writing the post about possible new communications surveillance legislation I came across an interesting piece about the information the mobile phone operators keep about you. To be honest I was quite shocked that the list was so extensive and I can now understand why individuals might feel the need to ask these companies delete, at least some of the data they hold on them.

Looking on the Internet you can find information about the different companies privacy policies. As you can imagine they make for generally dull reading; A typical telecommunications provider will keep the following records for a period ranging between six month and two years:

• Phone numbers and/or email addresses of calls, texts MMS, emails and other communications made and received by you and the date, duration, time and cost of such communications. (This includes content)
• Your searching, browsing history (including web sites you visit) and together with times dates and physical location data.
• Internet PC location for broadband, address location for billing, delivery, installation or as provided by individual, fixed line phone location.

Which it is happy to provide to provide third parties where required by law, regulation or legal proceedings. This goes much further than that required under the old European Unions Data Retention Regulations of 2009. It is no wonder that the Court of Justice of the European Union said that keeping data on individuals was unlawful since was a interference with the fundamental rights of individuals to a private life. 

In addition to this it seems that the companies that make the phones are keeping information on us through our use of applications. For example both Apple and Google have been accused of storing information on our location and the time we spend at different locations. Then there are the tracking cookies they put on our phones to deliver us, what they consider, appropriate advertising targeted to our Internet usage. Together with this are other companies applications like Facebook and Twitter doing there bit to collect data on us.

All in all, owning a mobile device or even connecting to he Internet or even just walking down the street takes away your privacy in today's world. Our world is a place where the more and more we are being watched and monitored. It is a chilly thought that Big Brother is with us now, and it is in your pocket.