"Twelve million phones, one dataset, zero privacy," 19 Dec 2019

The Times Privacy Project… [obtained a data file storing] more than 50 billion location pings from the phones of more than 12 million Americans… The... data... originated from a location data company, one of dozens quietly collecting precise movements using software slipped onto mobile phone apps... “The seduction of these consumer products is so powerful that it blinds us to the possibility that there is another way to get the benefits of the technology without the invasion of privacy. But there is,” said Willaim Staples [founding director, Suveillance Studies Research Center, University of Kansas]… Describing location data as anonymous is “a completely false claim” that has been debunked in multiple studies, [said] Paul Ohm [law professor, privacy researcher, Georgetown University Law Center]

Companies say the data is shared only with vetted partners... In absence of a federal privacy law, the industry has largely relied on self-regulation… Location data companies generally downplay the risks of collecting such revealing information at scale... “No, it doesn’t really keep us up at night,” Brian Czarny, chief marketing officer at Factual, one such company, said. He added that Factual does not resell detailed data like the information we reviewed. “We don’t feel like anybody should be doing that because it’s a risk to the whole business,” he said... “If a private company is legally collecting location data, they’re free to spread it or share it however they want,” said Calli Schroeder [a lawyer at VeraSafe]… Large data companies like Foursquare... say they don’t sell detailed location data like the kind reviewed for this story but rather use it to inform analysis... But a number of companies do sell the detailed data. Buyers are typically data brokers and advertising companies.

... The companies profiting from our every move can’t be expected to voluntarily limit their practices. Congress has to step in to protect Americans’ needs as consumers and rights as citizens.