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Comment by DanBC | Hacker News Reader

INterestingly what you describe is probably not legal under EU privacy laws. People are horrified by NSA just collecting this data. And yet you calmly describe this process.

Your opinions are not given in your post - you're not saying whether it's good or bad to do this - but it's clear that the company you worked for didn't see doing this as evil.

I find it fascinating that this kind of data mining has been going on for years and that opposition has been so quiet.

(Please, this post is not any judgement about you!)

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All the telcos collect this data as far as I know. They're allowed to for the purposes of improving and maintaining their network. A few crunch it for marketing purposes but this has to be opt-in (not that customers would have any idea what that might entail, even if the privacy policy describes it broadly). I can't comment on the legality of the project I worked on, but I assume it was checked out by legal counsel.

I personally wouldn't want my data mined in this way. I don't retain any brand loyalty, lets put it that way.

Does the EU actually have laws against collecting this data without opt-in for marketing?

On a related note: it would be really interesting to see privacy laws visualized around the world.

It may well be legal, if part of the stated purpose of collecting the data, as agreed with the customer in the T's and C's that they thoroughly read through and agreed to, was to collect data for research, network development, service development and other wooley terms that cover this kind of R&D.

What many companies do is anonymise the data, remove the actual phone numbers /account details and replace with dummy numbers. While not ideal (backwards matching is possible due to the clues the data "gives up"), its probably safer than it sounds.

There's also the matter of who's doing it. It is, imo, one thing that the company whose services I use collect data on my use of their equipment - for gathering network performance data, troubleshooting (and billing info) that they are using themselves and not handing over to other parties.

It's another thing to have government agencies snooping in such data for entirely different purposes.

I think his point was that even anonymized data isn't as anonymous as you think.

> INterestingly what you describe is probably not legal under EU privacy laws

Not only is it legal, it's essential for telcos to expand or enhance their cell coverage.

If anonymisation is reversible (it seems clear that it is reversible, if it was anonymised at all), the data likely again falls under the Data Protection Directive in the EU.

There, personal data legally requires explicit permission for each specific purpose it's used for and cannot be stored any longer than is necessary for that purpose.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Protection_Directive#Prin...

Improving cell coverage / planning for growth is a specific purpose. You can then argue how long to keep the metadata for - any reasonable argument starts in years.

I think we need to accept that metadata and all digital comms is communications in public. And that we need social conventions backed by law to make certain things politely not read unless a warrent is served.

>Improving cell coverage / planning for growth is a specific purpose.

Agree, so you just need contractual permission (not hard to get). You can't decide later that you want to use it for some other apparently-innocuous reason.

>any reasonable argument starts in years.

Cell coverage data from years ago is relevant to today's growth? Although that might be enough to get you out of a legal hole, I find that highly dubious.

The law is there, but it's not understood, not clear enough, nor enforceable enough for commerce to fall in line.

what your company doesn't make year over year comparisons? Many telco's at least in the US don't own every tower they rent and if they can compare that we aren't utilizing this tower is this a downward trend? Should we not renew our contract for this cell tower location. Then there is just the planning aspects of anticipating heavy use patterns for major events, concerts, festivals etc. you can't compare how your system is handling the added demand as an even grows if you don't have data

Presumably one would need to review population growth, movement, etc trends.

It's basically what Google Now uses to figure out your home and work locations and prepare directions and traffic for you.

This is exactly what the NSA have been doing, according to an earlier whistle blower, see eg my submission to HN here with his keynote from Hope 9 (2012):

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5964403

edit: To save a click: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxnp2Sz59p8 [NSA whistleblower William Binney Keynote at HOPE 9 (2012) [video]]

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