Stanford research shows that telephone metadata (calls you make, how long they last, etc.) can reveal a surprising amout of personal information. This could lead to even more surveillance of cell phone calls.
In addition to getting our internet data, they could now be looking at how many phone calls you make, to whom, from where, and how long those phone calls lasted.
Their analysis found that it is possible to extract personal information from this data. Also, if they follow who you call, then there is more data involving even more American citizens.
The researchers set out to find holes in the National Security Agency’s (NSA) metadata program. The current system separates metadata about the calls from the content of the calls. It assumes that you can’t find personal data from the phone’s metadata. This information can be used to help the government make decisions about government surveillance and data privacy.
An application was created that looks through phone data from 800 volunteers. This involved 250,000 calls and 1.2 million texts.
You can learn a lot about a person from the calls they make. For instance, one volunteer had called a cardiologist, a drugstore, and a hotline for a cardiac arrhythmia monitoring machine; therefore, one gathers that this person, or one of their family members, has a cardiac arrhythmia.
One of the government’s justifications for collecting phone metadata is that it is not sensitive information, but it can be. Here is what study co-author Patrick Mutchler said about this:
“I was somewhat surprised by how successfully we inferred sensitive details about individuals. It feels intuitive that the businesses you call say something about yourself. But when you look at how effectively we were able to identify that a person likely had a medical condition, which we consider intensely private, that was interesting.”
What Can We Find Out From Metadata
Looking at some of the numbers that the participants called, the team gleaned a lot of information about the people. There were calls to Alcoholics Anonymous groups, gun stores, labor unions, divorce lawyers, and many others. Here are some examples of information that was unveiled:
“Participant A communicated with multiple local neurology groups, a specialty pharmacy, a rare condition management service, and a hotline for a pharmaceutical used solely to treat relapsing multiple sclerosis.
Participant B spoke at length with cardiologists at a major medical center, talked briefly with a medical laboratory, received calls from a pharmacy, and placed short calls to a home reporting hotline for a medical device used to monitor cardiac arrhythmia.
Participant C made a number of calls to a firearm store that specializes in the AR semiautomatic rifle platform. They also spoke at length with customer service for a firearm manufacturer that produces an AR line.
In a span of three weeks, Participant D contacted a home improvement store, locksmiths, a hydroponics dealer, and a head shop.
Participant E had a long, early morning call with her sister. Two days later, she placed a series of calls to the local Planned Parenthood location. She placed brief additional calls two weeks later, and made a final call a month after.”
Your phone data may not be as private as you think it is.
Here is a video explaining the concept:
Featured image by DeclanTM via Flickr, available under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.
