People’s movement data impacts on privacy

Tāmaki Makaurau - Spark is holding customers’ geographic location data for seven years, far more than the average telco, LocationTechNZ says.

Vodafone stores their data for 14 months, 2 Degrees withheld sharing this information, and the average United States telco holds their data for two years.

There are no rules in New Zealand that states how long geographic data can be stored, but the Privacy Act 2020 could be applied if a person was identifiable from the data, LocationTechNZ says.

People wonder much data is being captured through smartphones, if they are being tracked, and for what purpose.

When people select turn on location services on their smartphone, it’s assumed that this data is being collected and stored. People wonder much data is being captured through smartphones, if they are being tracked, and for what purpose. New Zealand had 3.8 million mobile phones with active internet connections as at the end of June 2017, Stats NZ says.

But what isn’t transparent for the everyday user, is how long this data is stored and what for?

People live in good faith that their telco service providers keep the location data secure, but that isn’t always the case for other applications that ask for our location data. Majority of the time, this data can be sold to a third party, and often for the purposes of advertising.

As someone carries their smartphone almost everywhere we go, they not only store a digital record of many of our online interactions, but they also create a literal map of our lives.

Once enough geographic data is stored, it’s easy to predict their next steps or determine how a person lives their lives.

An investigation into the smartphone tracking industry can give a thorough breakdown of how this technology has been utilised.

Collecting location data can be seen as a double edge sword. It provides so many insights across a range of industries.

Progress is being made to further protect people’s data with the Ministry of Justice recently publishing its proposal to strengthen the transparency of the indirect collection of personal information under the Privacy Act 2020.

Kiwis need to assist non-GIS developers to understand platforms and start leveraging modern browser technology.

With the rise of Industry 4.0, data interoperability and being able to extract large datasets faster than ever, the public wants to see computers work for their money.

It’s clear that location technology can no longer be seen as a silo and should be framed as location intelligence. It’s no longer an isolated technology, but one that is an enabler.