IBM wants my phone data. I'll happily give it more

Over the weekend news broke that IBM Research has been working with personal mobile phone records to map social networks. Some may complain that Big Brother is watching, but the real question is why some company hasn't formed already to blend mobile data with IM and e-mail traffic to map and profit from the social graph.

(Credit: Apple)

Think about it. My in-box already knows where I'm traveling, what I buy, etc. because my receipts go there. If someone were to merge this data with my phone records (easily had for the price of my AT&T login credentials), my e-mail log, and my Twitter, IM, and social network data, they'd know exactly who I know and where I'm likely to bump into them.

I'd gladly give up this data to facilitate those interactions.

Privacy wonks will bewail this apparent lack of concern for the sanctity of my data. But they'd be wrong.

It's not that I deprecate the value of my security. It's just that I value more the possibilities that arise when I share this data with a network of friends--sharing really only makes sense through a company or community that networks my address book with those of others I like and trust.

I can't fathom why someone hasn't done this yet. Tim O'Reilly has been talking about this Address Book 2.0 concept for years, and I've written on it several times, too. (See here and here.)

All the necessary data is sitting in my in-box or through easily accessed online or desktop applications. Someone simply needs to combine and process it.

Maybe that "someone," as Tim O'Reilly has suggested, could be the open-source community. We wouldn't want a community to shepherd the data, but to build the data connectors to a centralized service? Sure.

It needs to happen. I'd love to automatically be told that my good friend Mike is in London at the same time as I am, and have a service suggest a reservation at a favorite restaurant (which it would know through my past OpenTable reservations). I'd "pay" for that by giving up a lot of data.

I'm guessing you would, too. So who's going to build it?

Follow me on Twitter @mjasay.

[Random_Walk]

Heh - you're obviously not a sysadmin... I'd gladly give (insert spare body part here) to have the ability to take a vacation without anyone bumping into me... :)

[Perry_Clease]

"they'd know exactly who I know and where I'm likely to bump into them. I'd gladly give up this data to facilitate those interactions."

Go right ahead Matt, but I value my privacy and want to protect it as much as possible.

I will give you points for not titling your story "IBM wants my iPhone data. I'll happily give it more." However you lose points for using OSX's address book icon. :)

[protagonistic]

If my "good friend" was in London the same time I was I would already know about it. It used to be easy to have a little privacy, but thanks to people like you it has become very hard to do. And since you started the name calling, this "wonk" thinks you are an idiot.

[cvaldes1831]

My bet would be Google. They already have expertise in location-based services, search (text, image, and video search), e-mail, calendaring, documents, speech-to-text transcription (Google Voice).

I just don't see a rag-tag team of open-source developers coordinating closely enough to the point of out Big Brothering the real Big Brother.

[0ri0n]

This whole article bordered on the ridiculously surreal.
I mean, what idiot doesn't consider the [stuff that defines your life - i.e. emails, phone records, friends list, friend photos, purchasing records, etc.] as a HUGE asset for any corporation, and a HUGE liability for any citizen?

Anyone else familiar with TransUnion, Equifax, Experian? It used to just rate your credit, and now those records can kill your job. How about Choicepoint? Breached multiple times, and who does that put at risk? The more information companies are able to store about you, the more any criminal is able to gleam about you or your friends in the event they are breached. After all, you certainly did not have this level of identity theft 15 years ago.

I am not against aggregating personal information, but I think the government should be the repository, not the corporate market. Its a huge personal liability to have data warehouses peppered across the country with my information, and its up to me to locate them when they are inaccurate. Having a central repository would make it simpler to "OPT-OUT", and control access to that information, or maintain the accuracy of it. The more places my information is stored to that extent, the more likely it can get breached, and at this time, I don't see any strong accountability. I understand the government requiring access for security concerns, but I wouldn't trust any corporation with my personal information.

And why should open source develop this? Why does this sound like another "we bought a CNET editor to market this" article??

[pentest]

A central repository is less secure because you break in and you own everyone.

All of this crap should be opt-in, not opt-out so only the ignorant and gullible like Matt will be affected.

[pjk0]

Just another "wonk" (otherwise known as John Q. Public) weighing-in to say I think you're clueless.

Google has already shown themselves to be two-faced when it comes to their vaunted credo of "Don't be evil" - which you don't hear about much any more, since it really doesn't stand up too well at this point. Everyone knows the spooks are dying to get their hands on Google's goldmine of information (and have already tried, and probably succeeded under "Patriot Act" gag rules), and any cypherpunk will tell you the only way to keep confidential data out of the hands of the "evil doers" is to not save it in the first place. SOMEone will get their hands on Google's data about us all, let there be no mistake about that.

The point is - human beings in this society have the least privacy they have ever had in history. We are tracked everywhere we go, whether by Google, your credit-card trail, your phone records, various affinity card programs, the embedded/invisible computer/GPS in your car, your electronic bridge-toll tokens, video cameras everywhere, and this goes on and on and on.

Promoting the idea of giving away all sorts of new information to entities you have no control over - or even any visibility of who they are or what they're doing with it - is just assinine. At least when we grant the U.S. government access to personal information, we have some indirect control in the form of laws and being able to elect government representatives that will hopefully moderate the government's penchant for indiscriminate database-collection. This has worked pretty well in privacy-sensitive California so far.

But granting even more giant corporations access to this stuff? NO THANK YOU VERY MUCH.

[scaevola]

It's this the next "evolution" of what the pre does. Aggregating all your contacts together from a variety of places... the next step would be location awareness (in my opinion).

[pentest]

Corporate slave to the end eh?

What you are saying is that you will give up your private life for a little convenience. Your shortsightedness will cost you much more then you can fathom eventually.

"Give me convenience or give me death"?

[::G]

Ah, how naive. When your plans are widely known, bad people can take advantage of those plans. Going to London? How about a bunch of guys clean out your house for you while you're out? Could be an employee of one of the corporations with access to your data, or maybe they got hacked. Either way, you're screwed. But you'd only have yourself to blame. Ignore the warnings about intrusive surveillance to your peril.

Smarter folks are buying more things with cash to avoid tracking, and even bypassing increasingly worthless Federal Reserve notes with other intermediates, or bartering. The government hates that because then they can't track what you're doing. Suck it, Big Brother!

[alegr]

Matt,
You forgot to insert obligatory "I'm not doing anything illegal, so I have nothing to hide" excuse.

[Police_States_of_America]

many laws are inherently evil, i'd rather keep my privacy and keep my personal information away from a police state that gives officers paid vacations after shooting unarmed people and tazing children and senior citizens and ass-raping people with tazers. think they wont hand over you data to the government? the Bush administration had over a million US citizens on its terror watch list. major phone companies were handing over data to the government without warrants under the Bush administration, Obama's administration passed a bill granting them immunity. i think if i do something illegal which i feel is moral, i'd rather not worry abount ending up in a black site. the fear of Big Brother is legitimate and doesnt require you to investigate too far into the past to know why our government is populated by thugs that wont think twice about illegally collecting your personal data.

[rapier1]

"I'm guessing you would, too."

You'd guess wrong then, champ. If my good friend is in London either he or I will take the initiative to contact the other. Otherwise I will respect their desire to not be disturbed. That's what adults do after all. Its a lot better than expecting some company to arrange play dates for you.

[gggg sssss]

clueless. What will you say when your SSN, bank account and credit card verification code are blasted across teh net. LOL

[beachbum70]

Here is a process to help you opt out from online data bases. http://www.OptOutdetectives.com