Everyone Knows Where You Were Last Night and Right Now: The Future of Location Data

The buzz: Ripped from the headlines. “Your Apps Know Where You Were Last Night, and They’re Not Keeping It Secret” (NY Times 12/18): “Dozens of companies use smartphone locations to help advertisers and even hedge funds. They say it’s anonymous, but the data shows how personal it is…One path tracks someone from a home outside Newark to a nearby Planned Parenthood, remaining there for more than an hour…” And April 3, 2020: “Google is publicly releasing the data it's already collecting about people's movements during the coronavirus pandemic…to show the types of places people are visiting across 131 countries and regions…it hopes tracking movement trends over time and by geography could help shape and inform governments' and public health officials' response to the coronavirus pandemic. We’ll ask Heather Federman at Big ID, Joe Jerome at Common Sense Media and Kenesa Ahmad at Aleada for their take on “Everyone Knows Where You Were Last Night and Right Now: The Future of Location Data.