At dinner during a recent trip to Florida, I asked my nephew to hold onto my sunglasses.
He asked where I got them from.
I replied, Shady Rays.
We carried on with our meal not thinking much about it.
A few minutes later, he received a text.
He looked at his phone and replied.
Then, like many of us, he opened up Instagram and began to scroll.
To his surprise he was served an ad for… you guessed it, Shady Rays.
A brand he had literally just heard of.
Stories like this are becoming more and more common.
Leading people to theorize that our phones are always listening to us.
On the surface it seems like a plausible answer.
But it isn’t the listening that concerns most privacy experts, it’s the talking.
You see, my nephew’s phone can’t listen to our conversation, but it can communicate
its location.
And that opens up a world of information to advertisers and more...
“the longer we’ve had cell phones the more data you can vacuum up out of them.
You can use it for all kinds of purposes.”
That’s privacy tech expert Robert Reeves, he gave us the inspiration for this story
when his tweet on this subject went viral in May 2021.
“All these little things that seem like meaningless bits of data actually add up to
a very detailed picture of how we interact with people not only on the web but off the
web too.”
This “detailed picture” is also known as our digital profile.
Advertisers build this digital profile through data tracking.
“When they look at all this data they start putting together ad profiles.
Ad companies can buy ads based on that data”
Historically data tracking has been done via cookies.
For those who don’t know, Cookies are tiny text files that your browser sends to websites
or apps so that you don't have to enter the same information again and again.
Everyone is being tracked.
Again, this isn’t always bad.
Who can remember all 16 of their passwords anyway!?
But, cookies on my device don’t explain how my nephew got served those sunglasses
ads on his phone.
Enter: location tracking.
“Mobile location data has been important for many years…
It’s gathered really simply put through global positioning systems in our phones.
Here's how it works: 24 active satellites and 8 spares located nearly 12.5 miles above
Earth's surface broadcast different signals to GPS receivers on Earth.
Receivers are in phones, watches, tablets, computers, and cars.
With signals from at least three of these satellites, the global positioning system
can pinpoint your precise location.This process is called trilateration.
“When we sign privacy policies, we are often signing away rights to all kinds of data including
location data…
Often time buried in those consent forms are the rights to get all of this data to get used."
Using these GPS coordinates ad buyers can start linking ad profiles based on how long
devices are near each other.
For example, my nephew and I hung out all weekend so our GPS coordinates would’ve
been near each other for days.
But even if you don’t allow apps to use your location you might still be being tracked.
A recent Princeton study found that your smartphones' locations can be tracked, even if all location
services and GPS have been turned off.
We’ve linked to the study in this video's description below.
When you use a private wifi network, connections between people and devices become clearer.
Deducing that you and anyone on that network may have a relationship.
“If I am connected to a Wi-Fi network you don't really need to use GPS to track me because
Wi-Fi networks can correspond with physical locations.
It just so happens that your cell phone connects to Wi-Fi and cell towers so it can give a
But obtaining your location and a picture of your closest associates is just step one.
Here’s where things get interesting.
Each mobile device, regardless of manufacturer, has a unique Ad-ID.
People we interact with also have their own unique Ad-IDs and marketers can make assumptions
based on these connections.
Say I search for guitars.
That, and anything else I search, will be linked to my Ad-ID.
Ad buyers can then start sending me guitar ads.
But now that my phone knows my location AND that I’m interested in guitars it can also
assume that those who I spend the most time with might also be interested in guitars.
And all this rocking out reminds me of Robert’s story about his mothers toothpaste.
“This summer, I went home to my mom's and I brushed my teeth every night and every morning,
and I used her toothpaste.
And the moment I got home, I opened up Twitter, I got on Twitter and I got an ad for Sensodyne
It was not even like weird or vaguely off putting, it was just a
toothpaste... because I had been around Sensodyne toothpaste all week, it jumped out at me ... So
I know that one of the ways that advertisers can get more information about us is by linking
ad profiles together.
So if my mom has been buying Sensodyne toothpaste
people who are combining data sets like that, paying to build more
and more detailed profiles on us, can combine this detailed profile of my mom with this
detailed profile of me, and put them together to find ways where they can advertise to me
based on things my mom does.”
In a sense, they are digitally recreating
our real life networks and sharing our online habits with the phones of those we spend the
most time with - coworkers at the office, family, friends at the park, and on and on
This all might be a little overwhelming and scary but there ARE steps you can take to
protect yourself and your data.
First and foremost you should practice privacy hygiene.
This simply means being more wary about what you sign up for online.
There are also steps you can take to slow down this data collection.
Both Apple and Android allow you to reset your Ad-ID with just a few clicks.
You can opt out of personalized ads entirely or you can reset or “cycle” your ad id.
Disrupting the profiles ad networks have collected about you.
Preventing GPS tracking is a touch more complicated.
The easiest way, but also the least convenient way, to turn off this location tracking is
to enter “airplane mode.”
Some phones may allow you to turn off their GPS radio and/or location services.
But of course you won’t be able to use apps that rely on gps like Google Maps, Uber or
Lyft.
If you're looking for a sure fire way to be untraceable you’ll need to completely power
down your device - or switch back to one of these bad boys.
At the end of the day many people are still not bothered by data collection…
If it's only used to serve you and your friends the same sunglasses ad.
Who cares?
But it’s important to bear in mind that your private data can be used in a substantially
more damaging way.
“It’s about the fact that this information represents where we physically are and
have been.
What our personal interests are, who we might be associated with.
That information can be used by foreign adversaries.
It can be used by our ex-boyfriend who wants to stalk us.
There's all sorts of ways that can actually harm people that this information can be used
for.”