Where does the data of Facebook and other "free" services go? Companies are known to sell cell phone location data. The following fact was revealed in the last few days on USA: This information was sold not only to advertisers but also to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), a government agency known for keeping immigrant children in cages.
According to a Wall Street Journal publication, ICE and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in general purchase and use the location information of “millions” mobile phones to track down and arrest illegal immigrants from Mexico.
This move seems to be legal, but like he says the WSJ, "The use of this data by the federal government for law enforcement purposes has not been reported before."
The experts told the newspaper that it was one of the "biggest concerns about massive data exploitation by the US authorities".
Venntel, a data-driven company in recent years at DHS, operated by ICE, is affiliated with mobile advertising company Gravy Analytics. Public records show that Venntel has also signed a contract with DEA, the US Drug Enforcement Administration.
"This is a violation of immigrant rights and data privacy rights," said Adam Schwartz of the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
“Our society has failed to protect consumers from companies that collect and sell personal information, including sensitive location data. Now, the federal government has reportedly bought access to that data and the uses to track down and deport immigrants".
He added: "This is another reason why we need strong laws to protect the privacy of consumers."
To mention that although the data does not include personally identifiable information such as username, but an anonymous alphanumeric identifier, there is a problem. A survey of her New York Times for this type of data, at the end of last year, it showed that it is quite easy to figure out who is on a site.
If a person, for example, is in a certain location at night and at another 8 o'clock in the morning, we can understand where his house is and where he works. Using this two pieces of information, and linking them to others circulating on the Internet, we can understand who we are talking about.
"Although they say the data is anonymous, analyzing different data sets gives us a very detailed picture of who you are, better than you know yourself." he says in Recode, Dragana Kaurin, a researcher at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University.
"These data can be used to distinguish people by race, gender, nationality, sexual orientation or bourgeois-social class."
And as the title suggests, free software like weather or games and Facebook on your phone is not free.
Data from "free" services, antivirus software, weather apps, etc., are on the internet and there are many buyers. In other words, “free” software comes at a significant cost to your privacy and the terms they exist embedded deep in privacy policies we never read.
In addition, now we should not only worry about Facebook and ads but also about the authorities.