(Cellphones) Betrayed by Our Own Data

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DATENSCHUTZ

VON: Kai Biermann 26.03.2011 - 16:32 Uhr

DATA PROTECTION

Betrayed by our own dataMobile phones are tracking devices that reveal much about our lives.One look at our interactive map of data provided by the Green party

politician Malte Spitz shows why.

ZEIT ONLINE

A v isualization of data collected by Malte Spitz's mobile phone

The seminal electronic band Kraftwerk was well ahead of the curve musically, but even the

lyrics to their 1981 song "Computerwelt" can seem uncannily prescient. "Interpol and Deutsche

Bank, FBI and Scotland Yard, Flensburg and the BKA, theyve got all our data squirreled

away." What was unimaginable 30 years ago later sounded rather threatening. But today, the

words are downright silly.

While government authorities like the BKA, Germanys Federal Office of Criminal

Investigation, (and the countrys database of traffic violations in Flensburg) do indeed have a

trove of information about us, the greatest source of data about our lives is much more banal.

The real snitch is in our pocket our own mobile phone betrays us. Thats why the Chaos

Data Protection: Betrayed by our own data | Digital ... http://www.zeit.de/digital/datenschutz/2011-03/data

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Computer Club has rechristened the powerful mini-computers we carry around with us as

"tracking devices" revealing where weve been and what weve been doing.

In a report prepared for Germanys Constitutional Court in July 2009, the hacker group

described what kind of information could in theory be collected according to the countrys

data retention (Vorratsdatenspeicherung) rules and what could be gleaned from it. The courtlater stopped data retention as it was practiced at the time, but law enforcement officials and

the government have by no means abandoned the concept. The possibilities offered by such

seemingly harmless data are just too seductive. In the next few weeks, the German

government is set to decide on new data retention rules.

Most peoples understanding of what can actually be done with the data provided by our

mobile phones is theoretical; there were few real-world examples. That is why Malte Spitz

from the German Green party decided to publish his own data collected from August 2009 to

February 2010. However, to even access the information, he had to file a suit againsttelecommunications giant Deutsche Telekom.

ZEIT ONLINE

Click on the graphic to access the interactiv e map

The data, which ZEIT ONLINE has made available for download and acts as the basis for our

accompanying interactive map, were contained in a massive Excel document. Each of the

35.831 rows of the spreadsheet represents an instance when Spitzs mobile phone transferred

information over a half-year period. Seen individually, the pieces of data are mostly

inconsequential and harmless. But taken together, they provide what investigators call a


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profile a clear picture of a persons habits and preferences, and indeed, of his or her life.

This profile reveals when Spitz walked down the street, when he took a train, when he was in

an airplane. It shows where he was in the cities he visited. It shows when he worked and when

he slept, when he could be reached by phone and when was unavailable. It shows when he

preferred to talk on his phone and when he preferred to send a text message. It shows whichbeer gardens he liked to visit in his free time. All in all, it reveals an entire life.

W ITH W HOM, W HEN, HOW LONG AND W HERE

The law that the German Constitutional Court ruled unconstitutional on March 2, 2010, has

been in place since 2008. I t requires all telecommunicat ions prov iders with more than 10.000

customers to sav e records of all calls and connections for six months.

That means the entire communicat ions record and all attempted ef f orts at communication

v ia telephone, SMS, e-mail or internet are logged and preserv ed for half a year. Not the

actual content, but all kinds of metadatathat can rev eal something about the ty pe and

nature of a contact.

NO LONGER INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY

The intention of lawmakers is to make such data av ailable to law enf orcement especially

when hunting terrorists. However, estimations by telecommunication prov iders would seem

to support the assumption it would also be used to trace lesser crimes such as illegal f ile

transfers, f raud and slander.

Aside f rom that concern, a main criticism is that data retention potentially p laces every

citizen under suspicion and such surv eillance could end the presumption of innocence.

Moreover, there are studies that show telecommunications data can be used to create

detailed behavior profiles considered by some observers to be as at least as revealing as

monitoring calls and other f orms of communication.

To illustrate just how much detail from someones life can be mined from this stored data,

ZEIT ONLINE has "augmented" Spitzs information with records that anyone can access: the

politicians tweets and blog entries were added to the information on his movements. It is the

kind of process that any good investigator would likely use to profile a person under

observation.

To prove how exact the data provided by his mobile phone is, his appointments are also

shown as they were publicized on the Greens website. The locations revealed by mobile

towers are mirrored there.

But government agents in the real world would have access to considerably more information

than that revealed on our interactive map. ZEIT ONLINE has decided to keep one part of

Spitzs data record private, namely, whom he called and who called him. That kind of

information would not only infringe on the privacy of many other people in his life, it would


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also, even if the numbers were encrypted, reveal much too much about Spitz.

While data retention allows for the creation of a profile of an individuals movements, it also

paints a picture of a persons relationships. The data reveal who is a friend and who is family.

The information shines light on clandestine connections as well as illicit love affairs.

Spitz is a politician, and as a member of the Greens leadership council hes on the road a lot.

While this means he is not an average citizen in some ways, his frequent use of his mobile

phone making calls, texting and surfing the internet is decidedly mainstream for many

these days.

Every ten minutes, Spitzs phone checked in with his provider to see if there were new e-mails,

a function that many smart-phone owners have activated. Since his phone was rarely turned

off, Spitzs movements were tracked 78 percent of the time.

Six months thats how long many German politicians want data on calls and e-mail

exchanges to be retained and its the same amount of time Spitz made himself available. Such a

period would clearly suffice for investigators to be sure a person had no more secrets. Indeed,

as long as a mobile telephone is turned on, the activities of its owner are being broadcast. And

even if a phone isnt on all the time, there can still be enough information available to create an

accurate profile.

Thirty years ago, Kraftwerks line "Flensburg and the BKA" described a world where personal

data had slipped out of our control and into the hands of big government agencies. Today,that lyric would have to be changed to: Telekom and the BKA, theyve got all our data

squirreled away.

QUELLE: ZEIT ONLINE

ADRESSE: http://www.zeit.de/digital/datenschutz/2011-03/data-protection-malte-spitz/komplettansicht


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(Cellphones) Betrayed by Our Own Data