Military buying phone app tracking data

[Deleted member 33385]

I wonder how much of the data collected from ebikes with phone control or tracking, is being sold to the military of various countries, like so many of the other apps?

How the U.S. Military Buys Location Data from Ordinary Apps

A Muslim prayer app with over 98 million downloads is one of the apps connected to a wide-ranging supply chain that sends ordinary people's personal data to brokers, contractors, and the military.

www.vice.com

Florida Prison System Bought Location Data from Apps

The Florida Department of Corrections is the first reported state agency to buy access to app-based location tracking tech.

www.vice.com

...as non-US citizens, everyone else have no rights to privacy - app tracking on this sort of scale isn't only being done by the US... they're all at it! Targeting all sorts of useful to track people, for a variety of commercially interesting reasons, stop terrorism, plan invasions etc.

 

[richtea99]

It seems unlikely to me that ebike users are an interesting target.
Not when every new car comes with a SIM & satnav built in.

 

[Deleted member 33385]

It seems unlikely to me that ebike users are an interesting target.
Not when every new car comes with a SIM & satnav built in.

Depends on the commercial interest - credit agencies and insurers would find how you ride/drive, where you drive/ride, how often, what areas you drive to, speculate as to why (work, play, what have you), who you hang out with, what their credit and/or insurance ratings are... if they correlate your genetic data that's already been sold by the NHS to Lockheed and others, they'd know all of that about your relatives too, as a consequence if you have cancer genes... which can be a factor in your ability to get credit for your mortage or when insuring your belongings and how much it costs... it can all become quite alarming when mining of big data is concerned. Big data mining is all about getting computers to join the dots, to the advantage of whoever is paying for the service, and to your disadvantage (usually). Let's not even get into recordings of what you've consented to the apps actually doing, such as snooping on your texts and phone calls, and correlating that with everything else I've mentioned, and far more than I have. Best not think about it. I love my "Smart" phone, though it's dumb to use one. And they get it all anyway by tapping into the internet hubs directly.

 

[richtea99]

My point was that commercial interest will centre on car owners first. They're richer than ebike riders - at least that's what the algorithm will say - a car purchase is £10-80k, and an eBike is £1-8k as a random example.

In terms of general data mining I understand your points - I write mobile apps for a living. We make 40% of our income from in-app advertising (not location-enabled ones).
I would truly love NOT to use adverts but the average person won't pay for an app any more - that went out of favour about 8-9 years ago. Digital goods are perceived as valueless compared to physical goods, even if it did take us 6 months to write - "I mean it's just electrons right - why should I pay?"

My advice is (roughly in order of least-to-most paranoid):
- switch off as much data gathering as you can. Google has a whole host of data gathering you can disable, as does Microsoft Windows.
- install ad blockers on your PC browsers
- use different browsers, not the same one all the time
- switch off location by default. Only enable it when you really need it
- don't use Google Search by default. DuckDuckGo or similar gove 80-90% as good a result. If you can't get the answer, then try Google as a last resort.
- don't use Google apps any more than necessary
- don't use cloud services to backup your data. Buy an external SD drive and do your own backups.
- don't use Facebook
- don't use Whatsapp. My phonebook is my business, not theirs.
- use a burner SIM. (I have to use Whatsapp for one social group. I use a different phone, different SIM.)
- don't use a smartphone

You will always be tracked at some level, but the above will mitigate some of it.
My wife continually gets interest-based adverts, she doesn't notice but I see them when fixing her PC.
I get none. Or maybe I just don't notice them any more.

Some light reading:
Obfuscation: A User's Guide for Privacy and Protest
The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power

I'd give you links, but they'll have tracking info...

 

[Deleted member 33385]

It seems unlikely to me that ebike users are an interesting target.
Not when every new car comes with a SIM & satnav built in.

I'd give you links, but they'll have tracking info...

...bit late for that! uBlock says it's blocking 15 trackers on this website.