Geolocation, Privacy, Twitter and Foursquare

(I know where you have been)

Location based services and privacy. Are you willing to give the latter one up for the first?

This is the first in a series of three.

1. This post; general introduction
2. May 2011; after a couple of weeks location sharing
3. June 2011; a while without.

Lets talk about a few things first, Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare, Google Latitude, Flickr. I bet you use at least two of those? Good, so do I. I mainly use Twitter, upload a daily picture to Flickr, reply to posts on Facebook and am about to share my daily location via Foursquare for this experiment, so lets continue. What exactly does this mean in regard to privacy?

We already know that telephone companies, can pinpoint your movement for the past two years. (See: http://www.zeit.de/datenschutz/malte-spitz-data-retention) In other words, they know where you have been each and every moment of the day, now you might think, so what? Who cares? I’ve got nothing to hide? I want to share my location! Oh rly? is that so? Well if that’s you, I suggest you keep reading.

First a few reasons why we are willing to share this information!

• Friends – Sharing your location with friends is cool, they can hit you up when you are in the area and likewise.
• Spots – You can find and share your favorite spots, tell people where to find you.
• Information – Come on, we are curious, for example searching via your smartphone on Google, or Google Maps for ‘shoarma’? ”Do you want to share your location for better search results? [Yes/no]” is probably the next question.

So what do we take for granted?

• Advertisements – You get more relevant ads. This is good for the advertiser and for you as a consumer.
• Loss of privacy – Who cares if Google or my telephone company knows where I am?

What about the risks? (Yes this can happen to you to)

Well the thing is, you’re not sharing this information only with Google or your telco, you might in fact be sharing it with the whole world. So what if they know where I am? Well based on your tweets and/or pictures, I know where you live. – So what? Use the directory to find me.

Lets pretend:

• Based on your facebook profile, you are in a new relationship; Congratulations!
• Based on your tweets from last night, you had a wild party, lots of booze, awesome pictures were posted to facebook/ flickr.
• Based on your location from your tweets 4 months ago “celebrating gf’s dad’s 50th bday” and the one this morning reads “headache…, shouldn’t drink that much”

oops.. locations match. Did you sleep with your ex-girlfriend last night?
(I’m not going in to it but think in the lines of blackmail, relationships, etc.)

Facebook wallpost about your new 50″ LED TV, wow!
Wallpost/tweet: “Leaving for work, cant wait to get home at 11 to watch TV.” Burglar -> TV, Car keys + car -> gone.
Well that one might be quite logical.  And with above example we can even skip one of the two. Based on your daily rhythm, gathered from your tweets, photos, facebook or other information.geolocation -> shows you being away from home monday-friday from nine-to-five.

So what? They could just look through the window to see if I am home. Jup.. that’s true. But they would have to make an effort to see, and do. Geolocation gathering, matching, they really don’t need to make that much of an effort and go straight for an easy job.
So? that’s it? that’s what I was reading all this for? You Suck! okay that is your opinion, and no I’m not finished yet.

Identity theft. Oh RLY? That won’t happen to me. Good for you.
Because you share this information everyone, the world now knows a whole lot about you. Take a second to think about it.
friends, places, jobs, hobbies, purchases, moods, plans, weaknesses.

Now you might not know a lot about me..Take a look at the picture below, view the ‘about me’ page, guess what? Now you do know a lot about me.

Okay, so? Like I care? Well I don’t care about you either, actually I do and that is why I am writing this story in the first place, it is to create some location privacy awareness ™.

I’m going to be doing a lot of location sharing for the coming month:

• Tweeting with location;
• Foursquare check-ins;
• posting stuff to facebook,

yes I’m going to do all of it. Why? Because I can! (Yes that’s it, that’s one of the reasons people give me all the time if I ask them ‘why?’)

And to see how it will change my life and make it so awesome, better and even the best month of my life ever! (or not?)

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