Here’s exactly how tech companies and apps conspire to track you 24/7.

There is America. The largest number of surveillance cameras per person in the world. Cameras are everywhere on city streets and in hotels, restaurants, shopping malls and offices. They are also used to screen passengers for the Transportation Security Administration. And then there are smart doorbells and other home security cameras.

Most Americans are familiar with video surveillance of public places. Likewise, more people are aware of online surveillance — and want Congress to do something about it. But as a researcher who studies digital culture and secret communications, I believe it’s important to understand how physical and digital surveillance work together to understand how pervasive surveillance is.

Databases can match location data from smartphones, the growing number of personal cameras, license plate readers and facial recognition technology on police cruisers and toll roads, so law enforcement can know where they are and where they are. They need a warrant to use cell phone tracking devices: Linking your device to a mobile device allows them to retrieve and analyze all of your data if they have a warrant.

However, private data brokers also track this type of information and help track citizens — without a warrant. There is a huge market for personal data, collected voluntarily from data people provide, data people provide unwittingly – for example through mobile apps – and data stolen in data breaches. Among its largely unregulated customers are federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies.

How to track

Whether or not you pass within sight of a surveillance camera or license plate reader, you will be tracked by your cell phone. GPS tells you weather apps or maps your location, Wi-Fi uses your location, and cell tower triangulation tracks your phone. Bluetooth can detect and track your smartphone, and not just for contact tracing, Apple’s “Find My” service, or connecting headphones.

People volunteer their location for ride sharing or similar games Pokemon go Or EntryBut apps can collect and share locations without your knowledge. Many late model cars feature location-monitoring telematics – such as OnStar or Bluelink. All of this enables opt-out.

The same is true online. Most websites offer ad tracking and third-party cookies, which are placed in your browser each time you visit a site. When you visit other websites, they allow advertisers to follow you around. Some websites also use a keylogger that tracks what you type into a page before you hit enter. Similarly, session recording tracks mouse movements, clicks, scrolling, and typing, even if you don’t press “Enter.”

Ad trackers know where you browsed, which browser you used, and what your device’s Internet address is. Google and Facebook are among the biggest users, but there are many data brokers slicing and dicing such data for profit on religion, ethnicity, political affiliation, social media profiles, income and medical history.

Big Brother in the 21st century

For perceived or actual security, people may implicitly agree to the loss of some privacy – for example, in stadiums, on the road and in airports, or cheap online services. But these transactions benefit individuals less than the data they collect from the companies. Many Americans are skeptical of government counts, but willingly share their running history on apps like Strava, which has revealed sensitive and classified military data.

In post-Roe v. Wade legal environment, there are concerns not only about time-tracking apps, but also about matching data on physical activity to online searches and phone data. A law like the recent Texas Senate Bill 8, an anti-abortion law, calls for “private individual enforcement mechanisms,” raising questions about who has access to information.

In the year In 2019, the Missouri Department of Health linked to state medical records data on patient visits to the state’s only Planned Parenthood clinic. Connection metadata shows who you’ve connected with, where you’ve been, and who you’ve been with – whether they’re in your contacts or not.

Location data on hundreds of millions of phones allows the Department of Homeland Security to track people. Health wearables pose similar risks, and medical professionals suffer from a lack of awareness about the security of the data they collect. Note that your Fitbit or smartwatch is similar to the ankle bracelets people wear during court-ordered monitoring.

The most widespread user of surveillance in the US is Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which collects vast amounts of data without judicial, legislative, or public oversight. The Georgetown University Law Center’s Center on Privacy and Technology reports how ICE has examined driver’s license photos of 32 percent of adults in the U.S., tracked vehicles in cities where 70 percent of adults live, and updated address records for 74 percent of adults. People have new utility accounts.

No one watches the audience.

No one expects to be invisible on streets, borders or shopping malls. But who has access to all that intelligence and how long is it stored? There is no single US privacy law at the federal level, and states handle regulatory maintenance. Only five states — California, Colorado, Connecticut, Utah, and Virginia — have privacy laws.

It is possible to limit location tracking on your phone, but not to completely remove it. Data brokers must anonymize your personally identifiable data before selling it. But this “anonymity” is meaningless because individuals are easily identified by reference to additional data sets. This makes it easier for bounty hunters and breeders to abuse the system.

For most people, the biggest risk comes when there’s a data breach, which happens often — whether it’s a leaking app, a careless hotel chain, the sale of DMV data, a compromised credit bureau, or of course, a cloud storage data broker hacked.

Not only does this illegal data flow threaten puzzling notions of privacy, it can also put your addresses and passport numbers, biometric data and social media profiles, credit card numbers and dating profiles, health and insurance information and more up for sale.

This article was originally published by The conversation By Peter Krapp at the University of California, Irvine. Read the original article here.