I am a 26 year old British Asian woman
working in media and living in a
Southwest postcode in London I have
previously lived at two addresses in
Sussex and two others in Northeast
London while growing up my family lived
in the detached house in Kent and took
holidays to India every year they mostly
did their shopping online at Accardo
gave money to charities and read the
financial times now I live in a recently
converted flat with a private landlord
and I have a housemate I'm interested in
movies and startups and I have taken
five holidays in the past twelve months
mostly to visit friends abroad I'm about
to buy flights within 14 days my annual
salary is between 30,000 and 40,000
pounds a year I don't own a TV or watch
any scheduled programming but I do enjoy
on-demand services such as Netflix or
now TV last week I passed through Upper
Street in North London on Monday and
Wednesday evenings at 7 p.m. I cook a
little but I tend to eat out or get
takeaways often my favourite cuisines
are Thai and Mexican food I don't own
any furniture and I don't have any
children on weeknights I tend to spend
the evenings with my university friends
having dinner I usually buy my groceries
at Sainsbury's but only because it's on
my way home I don't care for cars or own
one I don't like any form of housework
and I have a cleaner who lets herself in
while I'm at work on Fridays you'll find
me at the pub after work at home I'm far
more likely to be browsing restaurant
reviews rather than managing my finances
or looking at property prices online I
like the idea of living abroad someday I
prefer to work as a team than on my own
I'm ambitious and it's important to me
that my
many thinks I'm doing well I'm rarely
swayed by others views this motley set
of characteristics attitudes thoughts
and desires come very close to defining
me as a person it is also a precise and
accurate description of what a group of
companies I had never heard of personal
data trackers had learned about me my
journey to uncover were data companies
new began in 2014 when I became curious
about the murky world of data brokers a
multi-billion pound industry of
companies that collect package and sell
detailed profiles of individuals based
on their online and offline behaviors I
decided to write about it for Wired
magazine what I found out shocked me and
reinforced my anxieties about a profit
led system designed to log behaviors
every time we interact with the
connected world I already knew about my
daily records being collected by
services such as Google Maps search
Facebook or contactless credit card
transactions but you combine that with
public information such as Land Registry
council tax or voter records along with
my shopping habits and real-time health
and location information and these
benign data sets begin to reveal a lot
such as whether you're optimistic
political ambitious or a risk-taker even
as you're listening to me you may be
sedentary but your smartphone can reveal
your exact location and even your
posture your life is being converted
into such a data package to be sold on
ultimately you are the product
ostensibly we're all protected by data
protection laws in the UK the law states
that any personal data set has to be
stripped of identifiers such as your
name or your National Insurance number
personal data is considered anything
that can be traced directly back to you
without the need for additional
information this doesn't mean it can't
be sold on only means that they need
your permission simple examples of
personal data include your full credit
card number your bank statement or a
criminal record however I discovered
that online anonymity is a complete myth
particulars such as your postcode your
date of birth and your gender can be
traded freely and without your
permission because they're not
considered personal but pseudonymous in
other words they can't be traced back to
you without the need for additional
information so why does it matter if a
bunch of companies you've never heard of
know your age or your postcode you may
think well it matters quite a lot about
a decade ago
Latanya Sweeney a professor of privacy
at Harvard University proved that about
87% of US citizens could be uniquely
identified by just three facts about
them their zip code their date of birth
and their gender in the UK where we have
far fewer citizens serviced by much
longer postcodes that probability is far
higher professor sweeney proved this in
a rather cheeky way when william weld a
former governor of cambridge
massachusetts in the u.s. decided to
support the commercial release of
135,000 state employee health records
along with their families including his
own these records did not contain a name
or a social security number but did
contain hundreds of fields of sensitive
medical information including drugs
prescribed hospitalizations and
procedures performed on these employees
for $20 professor sweeney purchased the
voter records for cambridge
massachusetts containing the names zip
codes dates of birth and gender for
every voter in the area and then
cross-referenced this with their health
records within minutes she had
pinpointed governor welds own health
record
only six people in Cambridge shared his
date of birth three of them were men and
he was the only one living in his zip
code
professor sweeney sent the governor his
health records in the post every day we
hear about new examples of companies
digging ever deeper into our personal
lives in the november u.s. presidential
election a little-known company british
company known as cambridge analytical
was tasked with winning the election for
a certain candidate donald trump using
data analytics the company employed
cookies online to track people around
the web logging every website visited
every search term typed and every video
watched they also created a viral
Facebook quiz to dig into people's
personalities which was taken by over
six million people in total they managed
to amass data on 220 million voting
Americans with an average above about
5,000 pieces of data on each person they
then use this data to understand
people's inner feelings and then
targeted adverts to them on Facebook
researchers have called them a
propaganda machine and it's not just
large companies digging into your life
it's free apps and small startups as
well I realized on my phone that every
time I logged fitness data into the app
endomondo it was sharing my details
including my location and gender with
third-party advertisers WebMD a symptom
checkers app was sharing even more
sensitive information including the
symptoms procedures and drugs viewed by
users within its app with its third
parties Fitbit was sharing data with
Yahoo a pregnancy tracking app was
selling on information about its users
ovulation cycles and fertility cycles
with people or advertisers like in Moby
as long as my phone is turned on my
location can be tracked and not just by
the obvious apps like Google Maps but a
whole host of unrelated services
from uber to Twitter photos snapchat
TripAdvisor and others you're not even
safe in your own home
in 2015 Samsung was found to be
recording people in the homes in which
their TVs had been sold using their
voice recognition systems they have now
adapted this so they only record when
the voice recognition is activated but
the creepy factor remains even services
like Google and Facebook trusted and
used by billions around the world have
been accused of crossing the line a few
weeks ago my husband and I were driving
home from work and discussing where we
should have dinner I suggested a
restaurant that I knew was somewhere on
our way back and then opened up Google
Maps to plot it turns out it was already
marked on the map with a little bubble
that sinking feeling of being watched is
not unique to me there have been several
anecdotal reports of people being shown
adverts based on things and
conversations they were having in real
life prompting concerns that Facebook
and Google are eavesdropping on people
via their personal devices to piece
together what all these companies knew
about me I spoke to a data profiler
called iota iota uses cookies to assign
me to thousands of different categories
including my job how many children I
have and whether I'm likely to buy Star
Wars memorabilia they don't know my name
but they know more about me than my
neighbours do iota also buys information
from third parties such as the credit
rating agency Experian which amasses a
massive database of 15 different
demographic types and 66 lifestyles all
based on people's post codes because
iota buys this information it knows that
I'm more likely to take taxis home
rather than night bosses late at night
and that I'm very very unlikely to ever
be found in a DIY store it can then sell
this information on to the highest
bidder sometimes large data sets can be
useful for the public good for example
for the use of Health Research
or city and urban planners but most of
this information being collected is
sustained by advertisers and traded
commercially in fact emarketer has
predicted that the online advertising
industry which is based almost
completely on data targeting and
tracking will hit an all-time high of 77
billion dollars this year if you think
you don't care about being unmasked you
may want to reconsider personalized
browser ads may be harmless but
connecting disparate aspects of your
life to predict your future behavior
could lead to unexpected consequences
for instance decisions and whether your
child gets to go to a certain university
or what price you pay for your home or
car insurance premiums could be made
based on data given to third parties
that you never intended to such as your
own lifestyle habits or family members
ailments in 2014 Ross Anderson a
professor of privacy and security at
Cambridge University found that the NHS
had been sharing its hospital's database
which included details of
hospitalizations for every citizen in
Britain with the Institute and faculty
of actuaries a body that was researching
how likely people are to develop chronic
illnesses at certain ages of course this
resulted in an increase in health
insurance premiums as the amount of data
that is collected increases
exponentially it becomes much easier to
identify you for example your Fitbit
measures your heart rate or your gait
patterns and these can be used to
estimate things like your height your
weight or even your gender these are
details that are very hard to mimic or
change the data is no longer about you
it is you companies are also starting to
predict future behaviors for example
whether you're a trustworthy driver a
good employee or a good credit risk
based on things like your social media
activity your health and fitness or your
home energy use the more the companies
know
about you where you live how many
children you have what your medical
ailments are what you buy your anonymity
becomes irrelevant
what's more you lose your right to free
choice as companies make decisions on
your behalf without your knowledge along
my journey of discovery my first
reaction was shocked I immediately wrote
to my local council and asked them to
make my voter records private I made up
a fake email address and I started
registering with a fake age and gender I
turned off targeted advertising and I
asked Facebook to send me all the
information that they held on me
including things I had deleted and spent
hours poring over it obsessively but
after a few weeks I realized this was a
pointless exercise I couldn't be a
digital hermit it wasn't realistic for
me to stop using social media search and
navigation apps and my iPhone all a part
of modern life that I cherished and
needed instead I realized that the
knowledge itself was empowering knowing
all the different ways in which in which
my data was being shared and collected
made me more responsible about where I
put it for example I stopped signing up
to supposedly free services for example
a VIP card at my local hairdresser or a
discount coupon at your supermarket
whenever I download an app I make sure
to check my settings to see what
permissions it has anything that seems
unnecessary like access to my location I
turn off ultimately there is hope as
more of us begin to realize the extent
of our data footprint we will start to
demand custody and control of this data
some critics have even suggested that
people be paid for their data in order
to give them more control this means it
will become too expensive for companies
governments and nonprofits to recklessly
mine and hold our data and sell it on
and discriminately
but until the data economy matures and
power moves back from the corporation to
the individual I have lost more than my
anonymity I have given up my right to
self-determination and free choice all I
have left is my name thank
[Applause]