Disqus
Probably a story that you will be very familiar with if you (a) live in the EU somewhere and (b) read the news on the net at all. An EU law was put in to effect on Monday 6th which means that all ISPs have to store the logs of internet phone calls and emails (but not necessarily the content of them) for one full year – I’d imagine that is going to be a HUGE amount of data, when it’s all totalled up!
People could be forgiven for thinking purely in terms of their PCs (either at work or at home), and the usage of popular apps on them – but of course there’s a not insignificant amount of this traffic that is now generated via Mobiles! I don’t know about you, but I would say I now do the lions share of my emailing on the move – and I’m sure at some point I might convert to the benefits of moby-VoIP also.
But how many people spare a thought as to the implications of that data storage – apparently it’s going to be used to “determine connections between people” (whatever that means), but crucially, organisations other than the Police could get access to this data.
Now let’s be clear – it’s already the case that lots of data about you, your preferences, purchasing patterns etc, passes “under the table” and is shared by organisations (and don’t even get me started about how easy it is to buy peoples’ credit card details – £12 will do it according to a recent news report I saw!), so what’s going to happen when the “data trail” you leave around the InterWeb is snapped up and processed by potentially unscrupulous organisations?
I don’t view this as scaremongering in the slightest – mistakes get make, data gets lost, false accusations are made based on bad data – the list goes on – only this time, there’s more of your “digital footprint” out there for people to piece together in whatever way they see fit.
If you want to read a really good article on this issue, from a wider perspective than just Mobile, check out this article on the BBC News website.
It’s worth a thought for all of us to consider the implications of the digital artefacts we leave behind as we connect to the InterWeb – be it via Mobile device, or other.
[Original story via: BBC News]
About The Author
Ben Robinson
Ben is a 10+ year veteran of the Mobile industry – starting his career when SMS was a still a relatively new concept for most people (!), he has now consulted on everything from bleeding-edge Mobile content, to the next-gen accessories you might view it on. As a result he has a broad and deep knowledge in numerous areas of Mobile – from network operators to device vendors, to infrastructure and middleware vendors (not to mention content delivery) – and has worked for companies in all of these areas! He is based in the UK, a hotbed of activity for mobile, and recently became a father for the second time – as oppose to in his younger years when he was happy spend time tweaking all manner of mobile devices to 'nth' degree, he now looks for services and hardware that provide the most efficient, compact, and reliable improvements to his already manic life! It’s his opinion that Mobile solutions should be there to help to make your life better – if a particular solution (be it service or device) isn’t doing this, he believes you need to ask the very important question of why you continue to use it... His focus at IntoMobile is mainly on Mobile content, services, and infrastructure, particularly as regards the UK market – and with the occasional look at devices. Additionally, using his extensive experience in the industry, he will provide commentary on the industry at large, with regular (and hopefully thought-provoking) articles.
