#anonymous data

A study published today in the Journal of Internet Medical Research finds that analyzing GPS and communications records from your smartphone can predict with near 90% accuracy whether or not you’re depressed

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Adding to the complications, researchers like Mr. Kaufman are being asked to safeguard privacy in an era when grant-making agencies increasingly request that data be shared—as the National Science Foundation did as a condition for backing Harvard's Facebook study.

The Facebook project began to unravel in 2008, when a privacy scholar at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, Michael Zimmer, showed that the "anonymous" data of Mr. Kaufman and his colleagues could be cracked to identify the source as Harvard undergraduates.

"The steps that they tried to take to engage in innovative research, to me fell short," says Mr. Zimmer, an assistant professor at Milwaukee's School of Information Studies and co-director of its Center for Information Policy Research. "It just shows that we have a lot of work to do to make sure that we're doing this kind of research correctly and in ways that don't jeopardize the subjects that we're studying."

Cell phone tracking has gone from is it happening, to who is doing it? After all that has come out in the news it has become very clear that the data on our phones is being captured by third parties. Apps, websites, search engines, even governments, are observing our lives through the digital footprints we leave behind.

When it comes to commercial third parties that are collecting information on us to determine our purchasing patterns, they look at a variety of information. Knowing the type of device you are using, what websites you are browsing and for how long, what you purchase, and where you are when you’re doing all this. The more information they can collect about you the more accurately they can profile you with similar users and sell you to advertisers. If you frequently browse for movies on your phone in the evening, they can target you with an advertisement for the Netflix right there on your phone. This type of targeted advertising is becoming more and more popular and as the demand increases, companies are finding more and more ways to track users.

If you are on a computer surfing the web you are being tracked through cookies. These are small packets of data that collect your activity on a website. When you visit a site and it remembers your credit card, address, or username, it’s because the first time you used the website a cookie was sent to your computer that stored all that information when you entered it.

On you mobile device, tracking happens a bit differently although there also are cookies. Much of the data sold to advertisers come from apps. When you download and install them you accept certain terms which often give the app access to your GPS location, contacts, phone usage details, a whole wealth of information. After collecting the data, it is anonymized before being sold to advertisers. This is to “protect” the privacy of the users, but isn't it too late by then? They may remove my name and other identifying details from GPS locations, but those locations themselves are identifying. Earlier this year a study found that with as little as 3 GPS data points you could identify an individual. And if you tag yourself at restaurants or events on social media, this “anonymous” data can quickly be matched back to a person.

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