Study tracking people via cell phone raises privacy issues

Updated 12:34 p.m. PDT to correct the attribution of the cellular phone tracking story. The story that focused on the privacy issues was written by Seth Borenstein of the Associated Press.

Cell phone usage tracked in an undisclosed industrial nation revealed a majority of users tend to remain close to home for months at a time, according to a study conducted by Northeastern University and cited Wednesday in the journal Nature.

While the study of 100,000 cell phone users in a country outside the U.S. demonstrated that 75 percent remained within a 20-mile radius of their home over a six-month period, the study, nonetheless, raised privacy issues, according to an Associated Press report on CNN.com. The users didn't agree to participate in the study--such nonconsensual tracking would be illegal in the United States, according to a Federal Communications Commission source quoted in the AP story.

Albert-Lazio Barabasi, co-author of the study and director of Northeastern's Center for Complex Network Research, acknowledged he was concerned about the privacy issues when conducting the research, but that the phone numbers provided by the carrier were altered to conceal the users' identities. The report could not state the exact location of the users, but rather only the cell tower that was receiving and transmitting phone calls and text messages, according to the Associated Press story.

The Nature article noted that the research may aid urban planners in developing appropriate resources and could also inform epidemiologists on the potential path that viruses may take in a given population.

[sanenazok]

What surprising results, people (presumably in Europe or Southeast Asia) don't move around.

Could it be because they have to work and don't go on vacation for 3 months at a time like professors do.

Also, good job on not getting consents, spend a little bit too much time in your ivory tower, did you?

[Beckdgc]

Check back tomorrow for our next shocking article, "Study: People tend to eat several times a day"

[SUNHEART]

No!...say it ain't so.

[CindyStanford]

The importance of academic research is understood through education combined with a careful review of source documentation. At minimum, reading the article in Nature and the AP article is advised for anyone feeling an urge to leave a snarky comment to this very brief blog post.

[willdryden]

Had they been tracking me, they would have found I don't leave my house with my cell phone. In fact, I have only carried it once when I left the house.

[cesaifoti]

The AP story is not true. Here is a statement of AP taking it back

http://www.pr-inside.com/correction-cell-phone-study-got-review-r629994.htm

And a statement from Northeastern University

http://www.neu.edu/nupr/news/0508/Ethics_Barabasi_Rese.html

[benjaminstraight]

Careful...

[losaramic]

I'm confused about why you think this was not an American study. According to another story about the same study, the leader of the study said:
"Mobility patterns are very important to quantify, because they affect everything from epidemic forecasting to urban road planning," said study lead author Marta C. Gonzalez, a professor at Northeastern University's Center for Complex Network Research. "But despite a big interest, there's been a lack of data, because it's very hard to track movement."

Northeastern U. is in Boston Massachusetts.