NYT Easily Tracks Location Data From Capitol Riots, Highlighting Once Again How US Privacy Standards Are A Joke

NYT Easily Tracks Location Data From Capitol Riots, Highlighting Once Again How US Privacy Standards Are A Joke

5 years ago
Anonymous $K6XgmDN5_o

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20210205/07595146191/nyt-easily-tracks-location-data-capitol-riots-highlighting-once-again-how-us-privacy-standards-are-joke.shtml

First there was the Securus and LocationSmart scandal, which showcased how cellular carriers and data brokers buy and sell your daily movement data with only a fleeting effort to ensure all of the subsequent buyers and sellers of that data adhere to basic privacy and security standards. Then there was the blockbuster report by Motherboard showing how this data routinely ends up in the hands of everyone from bail bondsman to stalkers, again, with only a fleeting effort made to ensure the data itself is used ethically and responsibly.

Throughout it all, government has refused to lift a finger to address the problem, presumably because lobbyists don't want government upsetting the profitable apple cart, government is too busy freely buying access to this data itself, or too many folks still labor under the illusion that this sort of widespread dysfunction will be fixed by utterly unaccountable telecom or adtech markets.