German Green party member and privacy advocate Malte Spitz wanted to see just how much data T-Mobile Germany was storing about him, so he went after T-Mobile, and after a legal back-and-forth, received 35,831 points of location information spanning as far back as six months (a time period mandated by local law).
Of course, there are always services like Foursquare, Google Latitude, and BlackBerry Traffic that make explicit use of gathering and sharing location data, but it’s when that information is being stored without warning that folks might get a bit jumpy. Personally, I find there are only two situations where location data can be used practically by carriers for anything other than figuring out which cell tower you’re connecting two. For one, there’s advertising, which isn’t a big deal as far as I’m concerned. If I’m going to get hit with ads anyway, they might as well be ones I’m potentially interested in. Secondly, there’s the use of location data by law enforcement, which is hard to not support. Why shouldn’t cops be able to dig up who was where when if it helps solve a crime?
My only encounter with this issue in Canada was with Rogers when I was trying to find out where excess text message charges were coming from, and they couldn’t tell me because they weren’t legally allowed to retain specific data about SMS messages. That being said, I’d happily sacrifice privacy for the sake of smoother services, better ads, and added security. What about you guys? Are you worried about Big Brother watching all the time? What’s the worst-case scenario of someone else knowing where you are?
[via NYT]