18 Nov Researchers Say Anonymised Location Data Does Not Assure Anonymity
Researchers from UCLA’s Anderson School of Management and Washington State University explained in a draft research paper how a person’s home can be established just by studying GPS coordinates transmitted by his mobile phone.
The researchers obtained their data from a company called Safegraph which gathers the location data from multiple apps, but could have also come from other data traders.
On their website, the company referred to the data as mobile location exhaust data, but some experts argue that the data is not something that is discarded as its name suggests, but rather something that was obtained questionably via a click-agreement from users who carelessly sign away their consent.
Source: The Register
