My Phone Was Spying on Me, so I Tracked Down the Surveillants

On August 20th, I requested a copy of all the information Venntel had about me. All Europeans have the right to do so, as a result of the GDPR, which was adopted in 2018.

The next day, the legal department of Venntel asked me to confirm some addresses I had visited recently.

“Once we have this information, we will first check to see if the Advertiser ID you provided is in our database,” the email said.

An «Advertiser ID» is something all smartphones have. This ID is the key to tracking phone users over time and across apps. Phone owners may limit how easy it is to access this ID, though few actually do.

I gave Venntel the address of my office at the NRK headquarters in Oslo, and to my flat at Majorstuen in Oslo.

Data for sale

Almost a month later, I received an interesting email attachment from Venntel. It contained information on where I’d been 75,406 times since 15 February. Suddenly I could retrace my every step – on a hike, out for a drink, and visiting my grandmother in Southern Norway.
DOTS: The left picture shows registrations of my movements in the area where I live. In the picture to the right, you’ll see a map of the NRK headquarters at Marienlyst. Over time, there have been an enormous number of registrations here. Illustration: Harald K. Jansson/Norge i bilder

There were no phone numbers or names in the data. Still, it would have been easy for nearly anyone to find out that this was me. Simple searches in Google and the white pages would show there was a Martin Gundersen living in Sorgenfrigata in Oslo and working at NRK Marienlyst.

#privacy #mobile #tracking #geolocation #data #datenschutz

https://nrkbeta.no/2020/12/03/my-phone-was-spying-on-me-so-i-tracked-down-the-surveillants/