Why AT&T is using your cell phone to watch your movements Published: Sunday,
June 10, 2012, 6:00 AM By Eric Sagara/The Star-Ledger The Star-Ledger And it's
all coming from your cell phone. At AT&T Labs in Florham Park, a team of
researchers is working to turn data collected through the company's cellular
network into a trove of information for policymakers, urban planners and
traffic engineers. Morristown has become the laboratory for the
telecommunication giant's experiment in "big data" - the massive amounts of
information we unwittingly share every day that can reveal minute details of
our lives. The fact that we are all carrying these sensors on our bodies now in
the form of cell phones ... I think we've only begun to scratch the surface as
to what that might mean," said Philip Abramson, a project manager with Jonathan
Rose Cos., a Manhattan firm specializing in urban planning. If we can get this
data on a large scale, it's better than anything else that we have, and it's
cheaper to produce. AT&T may be the latest company to try to mine data from our
cell phones, but it is hardly alone. Verizon has also started looking for a way
to make money off the location data of its customers. Google tracks smart-phone
owners to instantly spot traffic snarls for its maps. And an English company
has begun watching the movement of shoppers through malls using the wireless
internet signals picked up by cell phones. There is a glut of information
valuable to retailers and planners alike that companies hope to extract from
our phones. But this technological innovation also brings privacy concerns as
companies become more inventive in watching nearly every move we make while we
remain unaware we are being followed. As more and more data goes online, it
will be easier to collect and amass profiles about people," said Justin
Brookman, director of consumer privacy at the Center for Democracy and
Technology. The ability to understand it and to generate knowledge from it is
just beginning to catch up now. Putting the appropriate privacy protections in
place may make it slightly less useful," he said. But I think it's worth it.
The researchers at AT&T Labs agree. Chris Volinsky, director of the statistics
research department there, said they hope that by analyzing how and where
customers use their phones they can help government agencies plan
infrastructure and tailor public services. We wanted to look at ways that we
could use this data in a positive way to make cities more sustainable and
efficient," Volinsky said. This was an example of the use of the data that
maybe people didn't think that we could do. Volinsky and his team have mapped
the movement of workers in and out of Morristown each day - as well as the
arrival and departure of crowds who frequent bars and restaurants at night - by
isolating cell-phone users who make calls in the town at certain times
throughout the week. What the team ended up with was a clear snapshot of where
Morristown's labor pool lives and where its late-night revelers go when the
bars close. Roughly 41 million phone calls and text messages laid out on a map
show trends not readily apparent: Workers commute from as far east as Queens,
and Morristown's nightlife draws people not only from North Jersey, but from
Brooklyn as well. View full size The researchers can see how the city changes
hourly by looking at calls and text messages relayed through cell towers around
the region, noting that certain towers see more activity at different times.
For example, the tower pointed at Morristown's entertainment district sees an
uptick in activity at 2 a.m., when the bars close, which suggests late-night
revelers are coordinating rides home, Volinsky said. If we know where the
people who are done drinking need to get home to, maybe we can use that data to
provide public transportation," Volinsky said. Researchers also used records
from the towers to watch how AT&T customers travel into the area. As a phone
moves through a region, it leapfrogs from tower to tower to maintain the best
possible reception. Each time a phone connects to a tower, it leaves a record
of its connection, allowing the team to track it. You can see the patterns that
people use in order to get into the city," Volinsky said. We can see how those
paths ebb and flow and how they change from day to day. AT&T began looking at
new applications for its data about a year and a half ago, Volinsky said. But
the team wanted to find a use for the data that benefited society, rather than
for marketing. The Morristown project is only in the experimental stages, but
AT&T is looking at how it can turn the information collected from customers
every day into another source of revenue. Volinsky's team's research will give
Morristown access to a wealth of real-time data, and officials there hope it
will help them answer questions about infrastructure, housing and zoning, as
well as transportation. The patterns of how people move between cities will
also help in coordinating with neighboring municipalities, said town
administrator Michael Rogers. AT&T says the information culled by the research
team is anonymous and covered under the company's terms of service. Researchers
do not listen to any calls or read messages, and Volinsky said any reference to
individual cell-phone owners has been scrubbed from the database to protect the
customers' privacy. Individual records are not available to Morristown
officials or their contractors, he added. We don't care who the people are who
are making the calls," Volinsky said. We just want to look at the trajectory of
the phones. Any information about a single phone call or a small number of
phone calls would never leave our hands. Watching how people move through a
region - mobility tracking - is a tool commonly used by urban planners in
Europe and is gaining popularity in the United States. In New York City,
transportation engineers keep an eye on taxis and how fast they move through
the boroughs. The information is collected from the credit-card machines in all
yellow taxicabs, which contain GPS units normally meant to track fares and keep
a log of business. Officials have been gathering data from these units since
2009, recording roughly 13 million taxi trips a month. GPS giants TomTom and
Navteq - the mapmaker behind Garmin and the GPS units built into many cars -
are also trying to harness the value of their data by selling it to government
agencies. TomTom has been collecting information on its customers since 2006,
and a promotional video marketing the data says the company receives billions
of measurements each day. Verizon recently updated its privacy policy to allow
the use of its data for other purposes, but it has not revealed any plans
publicly to do so. Google collects the location and speed of travel of people
who use its maps on GPS-enabled phones. That information is aggregated and laid
out on Google Maps as part of the live traffic feed. STAY CONNECTED 24/7
Download our free NJ.com mobile and tablet apps to keep up with the latest New
Jersey news, sports and entertainment. And on a smaller level, malls in the
United Kingdom and Australia have begun tracking their shoppers using Wi-Fi
connections, a program that was tested in two U.S. malls - one in California
and another in Virginia - during last year's holiday season. AT&T's data, which
does not include GPS locations, could serve a similar purpose by exposing
weaknesses in existing traffic systems. A new traffic light or construction
detour can have rippling effects throughout a region; a snarl in traffic can
cause problems elsewhere in the system. That is a very hard thing to measure
unless you have large sophisticated data sets and sophisticated analytical
techniques to look for these minute changes in usage patterns," said Abramson,
whose firm oversees planning for Morristown and is working with the AT&T
prototype data. But privacy advocates worry information about people will be
exposed, despite measures taken to protect consumers. ? Big data' is the mantra
right now. Everyone wants to go there, and everyone has these stories about how
it might benefit us," said Lee Tien, senior staff attorney with the Electronic
Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco-based nonprofit organization specializing
in free speech, privacy and consumer rights. One of the things you learn in
kindergarten is that if you want to play with somebody else's toys, you ask
them," Tien said. What is distressing, and I think sad, about the big data
appetite is so often it is essentially saying, 'Hey, we don't have to ask.'?
Related coverage: N.J. AT&T lab receives patent for self-destructing 'Mission:
Impossible' e-mails Inappropriate post? Alert us. .
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ATI (Adaptive Technology Inc.)
A special interest affiliate of the Missouri Council of the Blind
http://moblind.org/membership/affiliates/adaptive_technology
