Comment by henriklied | Hacker News Reader

Comment by henriklied | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

> The article assumes that the location data must have been collected because he gave an app permission to access his location. I bet they couldn’t figure out which app it was because it wasn’t an app.

I worked on this story (and the others, we're still publishing [1] [2]).

The dataset we bought from Tamoco didn't contain an app name for most of the data. So instead of guessing, we're open about the fact that we don't quite know. Which is sort of the issue here – there's not a lot of transparency around what is collected and by whom.

The Norwegian Data Protection Agency (DPA) has opened an investigation into Tamoco [2] after our first story, and they want to cooperate with the UK DPA.

[1] https://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?depth=1&...

[2] https://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?depth=1&...

You should search the dataset for government building coordinates to deanonymize politicians and that ought to really be a scandal worthy of legislation against mobile tracking once you air their dirty secrets e.g. suspected infidelity, leisure trips to brothels, etc.

It could be an app - we've had startups approach us to sell location data collected from apps so I wouldn't rule anything out at this point.

Feel free to contact me if this is something you want to talk about!

> I worked on this story

Having access to original NRK data, is it possible to deanonymize more people (try to check your home address, NRK HQ, etc), and ask them for a list of installed apps to check if all have one in common? Although it's questionable from privacy point of view, so probably better to pursue it in legal ways.

> is it possible to deanonymize more people

There are more stories coming in the next days and weeks which will touch more on this topic.

I’m cautious about what apps and services get access to my location and I feel like I have good control, but I don’t really have any idea of how carriers like Telenor and Telia handle my location data. Are you planning to touch on this or investigate it in the upcoming articles?

Not at this point, no. We went into detail on Telia and Telenors analytical platforms last year, though. Should still be up to date: https://nrkbeta.no/2019/10/11/telia-og-telenor-selger-analys...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com