In RetroTech: NetLingo Blog

If someone wanted to create a global system for tracking human beings and collecting information about them, it would look a lot like the digital mobile-device network. It knows where you are, and--the more you text, tweet, shop, take pictures and navigate your surroundings using a smart phone--it knows an awful lot about what you're doing.

Which is one reason federal officials turned to Sprint, Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile in early 2009 when they needed to solve the robbery of a Berlin, Conn., branch of Webster Bank. Using a loophole in a 1986 law that allows warrantless searches of stored communications, the feds ordered the carriers to provide records of phones that used a nearby cell tower on the day of the crime. The carriers turned over to the prosecutors the identities, call records and other personal information of 169 cell-phone users--including two men who were eventually sentenced to prison for the robbery. With a simple request, the feds cracked a case that might have otherwise taken years to solve. In the process, they collected information on 167 people who they had no reason to believe had committed a crime, including details like numbers dialed and times of calls that would have been protected as private on a landline.

Such cases are common. In response to a request from Representative Ed Markey, major cell carriers revealed in July, 2012 that they had received more than 1.3 million requests for cell-phone tracking data from federal, state and local law-enforcement officials in 2011. By comparison, there were 3,000 wiretap warrants issued nationwide in 2010. That revelation has added to a growing debate over how to balance the convenience and security consumers now expect from their smart phones with the privacy they traditionally have wanted to protect. Every second we enjoy their convenience, smart phones are collecting information, recording literally millions of data points every day.

The potential for good is undeniable. In recent years, the average time it takes the U.S. Marshals Service to find a fugitive has dropped from 42 days to two, according to congressional testimony from Susan Landau, a Guggenheim fellow. Cell phones have changed criminal investigation from the ground up. "There is a mobile device connected to every crime scene," says Peter Modafferi, the chief of detectives in Rockland County, New York.

But as smart phones' tracking abilities have become more sophisticated, law enforcement, phonemakers, cell carriers and software makers have come under fire for exploiting personal data without the knowledge of the average user. Much of the law protecting mobile privacy in the U.S. was written at the dawn of the cell-phone era in the 1980s, and it can vary from state to state. Companies have widely differing privacy policies. Now conservatives and liberals on Capitol Hill are pushing legislation that would set new privacy standards, limiting law-enforcement searches and restricting what kinds of information companies can collect.

Government snooping is part of the worry. But market demand is driving some of the biggest collectors of data. Mobile advertising is now a $6 billion industry, and identifying potential customers based on their personal information is the new frontier. Last year, reports showed that free and cheap apps were capable of everything from collecting location information to images a phone is seeing. One app with image-collection capabilities, Tiny Flashlight, uses a phone's camera as a flashlight and has been installed at least 50 million times on phones around the world. Tiny Flashlight's author, Bulgarian programmer Nikolay Ananiyev, tells Time that his program does not collect the images or send them to third parties.

In November 2012, news broke that a company named Carrier IQ had installed software on as many as 150 million phones that accesses users' texts, call histories, Web usage and location histories without users' knowing consent. Carrier IQ says it does not record, store or transmit the data but uses it to measure performance. In February, Facebook, Yelp, Foursquare and Instagram apps, among others, were reported to be uploading contact information from iPhones and iPads. The software makers told the blog VentureBeat that they only use the contact information when prompted by users. "No app is free," says one senior executive at a phone carrier. "You pay for them with your privacy."

Many consumers are happy to do so, and so far there hasn't been much actual damage, at least not that privacy advocates can point to. The question is where to draw the line. For instance, half of smart-phone users make banking transactions via their mobile device. The Federal Trade Commission has brought 40 enforcement cases in recent years against companies for improperly storing customers' private information.

Law enforcement is subject to some oversight. Absent an emergency, prosecutors and police must convince a judge that the cell information they are seeking from wireless companies is material to a criminal case under investigation. An unusual alliance between liberals and conservatives is pushing a bill to impose the same requirements for getting cell tracking data as those that are in place when cops want to get a warrant to search a house. Another bill would increase restrictions on what app writers can do with personal information. Cases moving through the courts may limit what law enforcement can do with GPS tracking.

Tech companies are trying to get a handle on the issue. Apple has a single customer-privacy policy. Google posts the permissions that consumers give each app to operate their phones' hardware and software, including authorization to access camera and audio feeds and pass on locations or contact info. The rush to keep up with technology will only get harder: the next surge in surveillance is text messaging, industry experts say, as companies and cops look for new ways to tap technology for their own purposes.
- As seen in Time
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