Vodafone Australia sharing location data with the government to fight coronavirus

[leadeater]

31 minutes ago, mr moose said:

Also forgetting the fact that 99% of what the Australian government does is transparent, I mean,  we are the equivalent of country town with population 50, everyone knows what's going on.  The trick is getting people to care about the 1%er's  where actual injustice is done.

What gets me about this situation today is that it is the job of the government to manage it and failure to do so would cause everyone to complain, likely by vote, but when it comes time to do that elected duty we turn around and try our best to stop it.

 

"Do your job", "No don't do that"

Public official: "Wait I'm confused now?"

[Spotty]

From the article:

Quote

The Prime Minister's office directed the Sun-Herald and Sunday Age to the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, which confirmed via a departmental spokesperson that "a telecommunications provider in Australia offered PM&C aggregated, anonymised data showing how busy cities like Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane are currently compared with this time last year".

 

If they're just going by metrics such as the number of connections to each cellular tower then it's not going to be tracking individual devices or where you live.

You also wouldn't necessarily need the data from the other providers either if you're only comparing Vodafones 2020 data to their 2019 data which will provide a sample size of roughly 20% based on their market share, which should be enough to make an adequate assessment and I don't think Coronavirus quarantine behaviour patterns will change significantly between people on various phone providers.

 

I'm not sure how practical this information would be at reducing the spread currently, though after the event is over you could compare the reduction in people in major cities to the infection rate and use it to support a claim that reducing the population in the city had a meaningful impact on reducing infections compared to other cities/countries.

 

I guess article titles like "Mobile phone location data used to track Australians' movements during coronavirus crisis" gets more clicks than "Telecommunication data shows less people in the city compared to this time last year"

[mr moose]

40 minutes ago, leadeater said:

What gets me about this situation today is that it is the job of the government to manage it and failure to do so would cause everyone to complain, likely by vote, but when it comes time to do that elected duty we turn around and try our best to stop it.

 

"Do your job", "No don't do that"

Public official: "Wait I'm confused now?"

It's worse listening to the died in the wool teamsters,  two politicians from either side of the left right divide say exactly the same thing because they are getting their advice form the same professionals and this job (pandemic management) is beyond tatty politics, so we have teamsters praising one and shit canning the other.  It scares me that these people vote.

[KeppyKep]

A number of people are understandably comparing to the bluetooth contact tracing app (which is also due to be released in Australia).

In my view, there are 2 massive differences between this and that.

The first is that the bluetooth app has no direct location data, it's only checking who you've come into proximity with. That could be on Mars for all the app knows.

The second difference is that the app is explicitly opt-in. You have to download and use the dedicated app. You can't get much more opt-in than that.

Whereas this scheme is not only automatic, there's no way to opt-out. And worse, they didn't even tell us it was happening. The original article is an 'exclusive'. Meaning there was no public announcement, someone probably leaked it to the journalist who then followed up and got if confirmed. If not for the journalist, we'd have no idea they were doing this.

[leadeater]

2 hours ago, KeppyKep said:

Meaning there was no public announcement, someone probably leaked it to the journalist who then followed up and got if confirmed. If not for the journalist, we'd have no idea they were doing this.

You do realize all telcos know what tower you are connected to always right? And other ones you are close to. You can't provide a service and not also know this, it's about as fundamental as needing eyes to see, or plugging a cable in to a switch and expecting the switch not to know the port you just plugged in to.

 

All this is is an information request by the government about population density and movement based on data the telco has while running their network. The only way to opt-out is to take hammer to your phone and not have one.

 

Edit:

Also this is not using GPS data.

[Results45]

“They can track you as long as your phone is turned on and on the scale of 100,000 people “depersonalized” contact-tracing is useless. Very, very precise location information cannot be anonymized in any meaningful way. There is no basic privacy law in the United States. We must decide what these systems will or will not look like now or they will decide for us.”  ~Edward Snowden on April 11th

 

Maybe we should all go back to using flip phones

[Arika]

14 minutes ago, Results45 said:

Maybe we should all go back to using flip phones

flip phones still connect to cell towers...

[mr moose]

15 minutes ago, Results45 said:

“They can track you as long as your phone is turned on and on the scale of 100,000 people “depersonalized” contact-tracing is useless. Very, very precise location information cannot be anonymized in any meaningful way. America does not have any basic privacy law.”  ~Edward Snowden on April 11th

 

Maybe we should all go back to using flip phones

Snowden (like everyone else) should stick to talking about things he understands.   Australia was prepared, has been for sometime, has put in place the right measures to bring it under control. That video so far is just a shit can of the US (Warranted or not I don't care).  The reality is, as has been pointed out in this thread already, that they cannot workout who any one individual from the data they were given, unless they were actually given a phone number or name.  All they have is number of how many phones were connected to city cells as compared to the number from this time last year.   

[LAwLz]

On 4/15/2020 at 11:26 PM, mr moose said:

It's actually quite easy to convert position data into movement data without identifying a single person.

What? No it isn't. What gave you that idea, because it's 100% wrong.

It's extremely easy to track down an individual with just their location history. Their history tells you things like where they live, which places they usually are at (for example work), if they use a car or public transport, if they are parents that drive their kids to places, and a wide variety of other things.

Location data is one of those things which is impossible to actually, properly, anonymize.

Location data is one of the most valuable types of data you can get. That's why so many apps has loved getting access to GPS data. Because it gives a very detailed insight into the person's life.

 

It's near impossible to collect position data without identifying people.

 

 

 

The article in the OP talks about Vodafone only giving out the number of clients connected to a base station, and that alone isn't enough to track an individual. But the Australian government are in addition to that using data collected through things such as apps on peoples' phones. It's important to evaluate the governments mass surveillance capabilities by taking into account all their tools, not just a single one. Right now there are at least two publicly known tools, and probably more secret ones.

[Results45]

41 minutes ago, Arika S said:

flip phones still connect to cell towers...

True, but with a 2-inch screen, T9 keypad, and extremely limited app access I KNOW the government, ISPs, and third parties can’t collect as much info as they want on me.

[mr moose]

22 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

What? No it isn't. What gave you that idea, because it's 100% wrong.

It's extremely easy to track down an individual with just their location history. Their history tells you things like where they live, which places they usually are at (for example work), if they use a car or public transport, if they are parents that drive their kids to places, and a wide variety of other things.

Location data is one of those things which is impossible to actually, properly, anonymize.

Location data is one of the most valuable types of data you can get. That's why so many apps has loved getting access to GPS data. Because it gives a very detailed insight into the person's life.

 

It's near impossible to collect position data without identifying people.

 

 

 

The article in the OP talks about Vodafone only giving out the number of clients connected to a base station, and that alone isn't enough to track an individual. But the Australian government are in addition to that using data collected through things such as apps on peoples' phones. It's important to evaluate the governments mass surveillance capabilities by taking into account all their tools, not just a single one. Right now there are at least two publicly known tools, and probably more secret ones.

 

I think you are confused, in the same post you try to claim it is easy to identify people then acknowledge that the data vodaphone gave out is not enough.   Also what apps do the Australian government have installed on my phone that they can track me with?

 

EDIT: why did you snip out the most important part of my post?  you have taken one sentence completely out of context with the rest of the post.

[Arika]

21 minutes ago, Results45 said:

True, but with a 2-inch screen, T9 keypad, and extremely limited app access I KNOW the government, ISPs, and third parties can’t collect as much info as they want on me.

whether its a dumb phone, or smart phone. this kind of tracking will provide the exact same information 

[leadeater]

19 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

But the Australian government are in addition to that using data collected through things such as apps on peoples' phones.

Not sure that is active yet and that is using locally held Bluetooth proximity data and does not report that back to anywhere. If you test positive you at your choice can flag that in the app and all app users will receive that device ID notification and alert them if their device has been in close proximity to your device.

 

So if you test positive then you are already identified so moot issue there and there is no sharing of proximity data logs to anywhere, it's local only.

 

22 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

The article in the OP talks about Vodafone only giving out the number of clients connected to a base station, and that alone isn't enough to track an individual.

Yes and that is all the article is about but written as if it's something very different, probably a lack of understanding issue. Data provided is only in an aggregated form so while if you are the source data holder yes you could identify people and track their movement, as we should all expect from our telco provider, you can't do that from the data provided and neither could you combine it with the App data if that is active yet.

 

26 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

Right now there are at least two publicly known tools, and probably more secret ones.

It's a pretty big strech to call these tools, one is operational data that any telco has to have, not would have or likely has but has to have to exist, and the other is an App that may or may not be in service yet that does not share location data or proximity log data.

 

Yea government intelligence agencies have tools, of course they do or why are we giving them tax funds, but these aren't those.

[mr moose]

7 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Not sure that is active yet and that is using locally held Bluetooth proximity data and does not report that back to anywhere. If you test positive you at your choice can flag that in the app and all app users will receive that device ID notification and alert them if their device has been in close proximity to your device.

 

 

It was not active yesterday.  The PM specifically ruled out releasing it until all privacy concerns were addressed (I.e being able to abuse identifying data).  Now I know most people don't care what that means and will just believe their own gut feeling anyway, but Australia has pretty strong independent consumer watchdogs and the government is not immune to scrutiny.

 

EDIT: also the app the government is trying get up and running is opt in, you have to download and install it willingly. 

[LAwLz]

51 minutes ago, mr moose said:

I think you are confused, in the same post you try to claim it is easy to identify people then acknowledge that the data vodaphone gave out is not enough.

No I am not.

You made a general statement that "it's actually quite easy to convert position data into movement data without identifying a single person". This statement, in and of itself is incorrect. If you give me positioning data on a person, that person is extremely easy to identify that person. Positioning data is inherently tied to you as a person (because you know, it tells you the position of someone).

 

What Vodafone is allegedly providing to the government is not position data though. It's extremely important to make that distinction. I am not sure what data Vodafone is handing over to the Australian government, but judging by the article it seems to be the change in number of clients connected to a base station. From the graphs presented in the article you can't tell when the data was collected nor can you tell which specific base stations the data was collected from.

 

I think it's misleading to say "we had 30% fewer clients connect to a particular base station this month compared to one month ago" is "location data", because it isn't actually data about locations. I mean, you can not use that data to tell someone's location, right? So then it's not location data.

Simple as that.

 

 

 

1 hour ago, mr moose said:

Also what apps do the Australian government have installed on my phone that they can track me with?

According to the article they use data from third party apps. So they don't need a "Au Gov the App" app installed on your phone. I don't know which apps you got on your phone, nor do I know which apps the Australian government collects data through so I can't accurately answer your question.

[mr moose]

2 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

No I am not.

You made a general statement that "it's actually quite easy to convert position data into movement data without identifying a single person". This statement, in and of itself is incorrect. If you give me positioning data on a person, that person is extremely easy to identify that person. Positioning data is inherently tied to you as a person (because you know, it tells you the position of someone).

 

What Vodafone is allegedly providing to the government is not position data though. It's extremely important to make that distinction. I am not sure what data Vodafone is handing over to the Australian government, but judging by the article it seems to be the change in number of clients connected to a base station. From the graphs presented in the article you can't tell when the data was collected nor can you tell which specific base stations the data was collected from.

 

I think it's misleading to say "we had 30% fewer clients connect to a particular base station this month compared to one month ago" is "location data", because it isn't actually data about locations. I mean, you can not use that data to tell someone's location, right? So then it's not location data.

Simple as that.

 

 

 

According to the article they use data from third party apps. So they don't need a "Au Gov the App" app installed on your phone. I don't know which apps you got on your phone, nor do I know which apps the Australian government collects data through so I can't accurately answer your question.

Please stop cherry picking sentences out of my posts.  I did not make an over general statement, my comments were specifically about the article and the commentary in the thread regarding it.     They were speaking about people in the city, the city is a location, i am sorry if you have trouble with the number of people connecting to cells towers in one location being location data. 

 

 

[LAwLz]

1 hour ago, leadeater said:

Not sure that is active yet and that is using locally held Bluetooth proximity data and does not report that back to anywhere.

According to the article it's from third party apps such as CityMapper, and not the Bluetooth thing Apple/Google are working on.

 

 

1 hour ago, leadeater said:

Yes and that is all the article is about but written as if it's something very different, probably a lack of understanding issue. Data provided is only in an aggregated form so while if you are the source data holder yes you could identify people and track their movement, as we should all expect from our telco provider, you can't do that from the data provided and neither could you combine it with the App data if that is active yet.

Exactly. I think it's very important to be precise with the terms used here so that people don't get the wrong idea.

I would however like to add that I am not sure we actually know exactly what data is being shared. Personally, I would like for the data to be completely transparent so that anyone can see it. I think that is the way any government data requests that is about such a large group of people should be handled. It would be great if all countries had a constitutional law which said something along the lines of:

Quote

Any request for personal information about 100 people or more made by the government has to be made publicly and the data provided has to be made public too. Personal information is defined as any piece of information which can on its own or in combination with other information be traced back to an individual with relatively high accuracy.

 

 

 

1 hour ago, leadeater said:

It's a pretty big strech to call these tools, one is operational data that any telco has to have, not would have or likely has but has to have to exist, and the other is an App that may or may not be in service yet that does not share location data or proximity log data.

 

Yea government intelligence agencies have tools, of course they do or why are we giving them tax funds, but these aren't those.

I think tool is a perfectly acceptable term to use here. A tool is defined as something that aids in accomplishing a task.

[LAwLz]

1 hour ago, mr moose said:

EDIT: also the app the government is trying get up and running is opt in, you have to download and install it willingly. 

1 hour ago, leadeater said:

and the other is an App that may or may not be in service yet that does not share location data or proximity log data.

Again, the article claims that the government is collecting data from third party apps that are already on the market and are actively being used.

The article isn't talking about the Google and Apple collaboration that uses Bluetooth.

The article isn't talking about the unreleased app from the Australian government.

 

It's talking about collecting data from apps that are already installed on peoples' phones.

Citymapper, the only app mentioned by name in the article is an app with over 10 million installs on Android. I have no idea what data is being collected by CityMapper, what data is being handed over to the Australian government, or if someone else is also getting the data. Just want to point out that when the article mentions collecting data from apps they are talking about apps that are already active and installed on millions of devices, and that it is already happening.

[mr moose]

6 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

 nor do I know which apps the Australian government collects data through so I can't accurately answer your question.

So stop making comments on it then.

 

For the record I can tell exactly what apps they are using (it's no where near as nefarious as you think), however that information is not part of the vodafone data and even with further app information the vodafone data is useless beyond know how many people moved into and out of the city on the network. 

 

This is one of the apps they are getting data from.

https://citymapper.com/cmi/about

 

I wouldn't be surprised if they are checking myki (public transport ticketing) to get an idea of  travel across suburbs into and out of the city.  They certainly can check total number of users of any one services across months or years.  Here is an example of being able to reverse check to gain the travel information of someone using known travel times against a record of all myki use:

 

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/aug/15/myki-data-release-breached-privacy-laws-and-revealed-travel-histories-including-of-victorian-mp

 

This is the level of detail you need in order to identify someone. There is no where near that detail of information in the vodafone data. 

 

 

The government does not care two hoots who is going in and out of the city, they just want to know how many are and if the controls they're instigating are working  or not. What I said at the start about this is 100% accurate.

 

 

[mr moose]

4 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

Again, the article claims that the government is collecting data from third party apps that are already on the market and are actively being used.

The article isn't talking about the Google and Apple collaboration that uses Bluetooth.

The article isn't talking about the unreleased app from the Australian government.

 

It's talking about collecting data from apps that are already installed on peoples' phones.

Citymapper, the only app mentioned by name in the article is an app with over 10 million installs on Android. I have no idea what data is being collected by CityMapper, what data is being handed over to the Australian government, or if someone else is also getting the data. Just want to point out that when the article mentions collecting data from apps they are talking about apps that are already active and installed on millions of devices, and that it is already happening.

And my post was about the data that vodafone gave them,  please stop ignoring the whole of my post to extrapolate one sentence into some other realm of controversy.

[leadeater]

2 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

I think tool is a perfectly acceptable term to use here. A tool is defined as something that aids in accomplishing a task.

In the context of and the way you were using no it wasn't. Everything is not a tool for anything. A hammer is not a tool for screwing and a screwdriver is not a tool for hammering, can be or explicitly are a tool doesn't make it a tool for the referenced subject.

 

7 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

According to the article it's from third party apps such as CityMapper, and not the Bluetooth thing Apple/Google are working on.

Most apps in development are all based off this:

https://www.cnet.com/news/director-behind-singapores-contact-tracing-app-says-tech-isnt-the-solution-to-covid-19/

https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/call-for-more-people-to-use-contact-tracing-app

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/25/coronavirus-singapore-to-make-contact-tracing-tech-open-source.html

 

CityMapper is a current source of data and is not the App in development. Every contact tracing App I have heard of are all based off this one from Singapore. Apple and Google are working to give solutions to the short falls of the Apps that use that design model.

[leadeater]

29 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

The article isn't talking about the Google and Apple collaboration that uses Bluetooth.

The article isn't talking about the unreleased app from the Australian government.

No but others are and it is part of the subject matter, people are in this thread not understanding what is actually being talked about in the article and these other extra efforts to do with contact tracing. So those need to be talked about to remove that confusion, they also need to be explained what they are and how they work.

 

These are not unrelated things, if people are worried about privacy and location tracking then that is part of it.

 

Far too many people are not reading the article, jumping to conclusions not covered in it or making some intentional assumptions about what is going on that are inaccurate so you're going to have to deal with things being explained so everyone can understand what is actually happening, what is being used and how it is being used.

 

And FYI it's a huge assumption to just conclude that the information being provided by telcos and App providers can be turned in to identifiable location data, everything talked about thus far is aggregate data to look at population flows/movement and density. Unless you have evidence otherwise all you are doing is playing the Boogeyman card.

 

Your reference to intelligence agencies and mass surveillance and this data as being part of 'their tools' is an example unnecessary and inaccurate tone that doesn't help at all, spreads misinformation and fear for no reason. It's not helping at all.

[leadeater]

29 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

Personally, I would like for the data to be completely transparent so that anyone can see it. I think that is the way any government data requests that is about such a large group of people should be handled. It would be great if all countries had a constitutional law which said something along the lines of:

New Zealand and Australia already have these exact laws.

[LAwLz]

2 hours ago, mr moose said:

So stop making comments on it then.

Why? We know that it's happening but we don't know to what extent.

 

2 hours ago, mr moose said:

For the record I can tell exactly what apps they are using (it's no where near as nefarious as you think), however that information is not part of the vodafone data and even with further app information the vodafone data is useless beyond know how many people moved into and out of the city on the network. 

Can you post a list of the apps they are using? I am interested in reading which ones. The article says there are multiple but only gave an example of one.

 

 

2 hours ago, mr moose said:

And my post was about the data that vodafone gave them,  please stop ignoring the whole of my post to extrapolate one sentence into some other realm of controversy.

Okay, I'm sorry.

[LAwLz]

2 hours ago, leadeater said:

In the context of and the way you were using no it wasn't. Everything is not a tool for anything. A hammer is not a tool for screwing and a screwdriver is not a tool for hammering, can be or explicitly are a tool doesn't make it a tool for the referenced subject.

It feels to me like you think "tool" is a bad term to use here because you think it has a negative connotation. Is that right?

I think tool is the perfect term to use here. I mean, it's not incorrect to say that it is, right? So we're just arguing semantics. The Vodafone data handed over to the Australian government is clearly a tool. A tool to measure how their advice to not move around is being followed by citizens.

"Tool" does not mean they use it for good or bad.

 

 

 

2 hours ago, leadeater said:

Most apps in development are all based off this:

According to what source? The Singapore app is not yet available for developers to implement in their own apps, so I find it hard to believe that that's what is being used.

 

 

2 hours ago, leadeater said:

CityMapper is a current source of data and is not the App in development.

Yes, that's exactly what I said.

 

2 hours ago, leadeater said:

Every contact tracing App I have heard of are all based off this one from Singapore.

Such as? Like I said, according to your own articles the app from Singapore is not opened up for other developers to use yet.

 

2 hours ago, leadeater said:

Apple and Google are working to give solutions to the short falls of the Apps that use that design model.

What short falls exactly?

To me it sounds like Apple and Google are just doing the same thing as the Singapore app.

 

 

2 hours ago, leadeater said:

And FYI it's a huge assumption to just conclude that the information being provided by telcos and App providers can be turned in to identifiable location data, everything talked about thus far is aggregate data to look at population flows/movement and density. Unless you have evidence otherwise all you are doing is playing the Boogeyman card.

What are you on about? When did I "play the boogeyman card"? I think you have completely misunderstood my position on this. I am not sure if that's my fault because I haven't been clear enough or if you and mr moose just assume I am against this and read my posts with ill-faith. Maybe it's a bit of both.

 

I have only made a few posts in this thread and in the first one I said (or at least tried to say) that what Vodafone is giving away is not positioning data.

Then I made a follow up post where I literally says:

3 hours ago, LAwLz said:

What Vodafone is allegedly providing to the government is not position data

and I also said I thought it was misleading to call that data "positioning data" or "location data".

 

 

Okay, I'll repeat, rephrase and elaborate on my stance on this whole thing.

Quote

Vodafone Australia sharing location data with the government.

No they aren't sharing location data. At least not judging by the way I read the article. To me it sounds like they are sharing the number of connected clients to base stations. It might not even be the real number of clients, but rather the percentage difference between two time periods. That's not location or positioning data. It's important that we use the correct terms so that people are not confused.

This data, by itself, is not problematic at all to share. If it is the way I described and interpreter the article, it's perfectly anonymized and can't be reversed back to someone, and it gives the government exactly what they want to know in order to effectively combat Corona.

 

But we should be careful with what we allow and don't allow our governments to do. It's easy to judge all new technologies being developed in a vacuum without thinking about them in a combined scenario.

All new things being done to combat Corona has to be either so harmless that there is no damage having it around all the time, or have a set end date so that "temporary" rules don't become permanent (like a lot of regulations tend to be).

Whenever the government does something right now in response to corona, we need to evaluate that both in a vacuum, but also in combination with all the other things.

 

 

 

 

 

2 hours ago, leadeater said:

New Zealand and Australia already have these exact laws.

Really? Are you sure about that? Because it sounds great.

So if the Australian government requests for example meta data from a telecomm, and it's about over 100 individuals, all that meta data must by law be published so that everyone (including me for example) can read it? And it can't just be gag-ordered?

Do you have a link to the law?