While I think using this kind of data is a bad thing from a privacy perspective, the first thought I had reading this article was "what about minimal users?" Specifically people like me, I use my phone for phone and web. No social media, no texting. I probably use the phone 5-10 times a day, and mostly for very short time periods.* (Actually I also use it for a clock, but that doesn't take me past the lock screen, so I don't know if it counts.)<p>So maybe there is a classification that you can determine for minimal users (and I doubt they all come from the same socio-economic group), but aside from GPS logging (which apple tells us the don't do) there are large gaps where they don't know if I'm filing bankruptcy or golfing at a $100k a year club.<p>I know I'm in the quickly diminishing minority in the world, but if you build your business around using a trove of data that is not available for a subset of potential customers, do you bar them from becoming customers, or fall back to standard mechanisms?<p>* The article mentions people under representing their usage, so I'll just add that my three year old iPhone 5S is usually at about 95% charge at the end of the day, and the only time I've seen it below 90% was during an extended trip outside, or at the border of reception areas.
the cavalier attitude this article shows towards inferring character assessments based on metrics makes me feel uneasy.<p>given the equally casual approach most technologists have towards embedding user behaviours into applications, the potential feedback loop of many companies deliberately creating habits in users, and then other firms judging those people based on their collected habits is distressing.<p>instead of sneaking malware and pop ups on to your computer as you browse, the malware is installed inside of you, as habits. there's no glaring pop up telling me there's something wrong with my windows license.<p>having uninstalled my social apps for several weeks now, i still find myself turning the phone on and staring at the homescreen for a few seconds. my eyes dully glazed over. it's more insidious than the popup, which i could close with a click. with this, i have to be mindful, and grab back the reins of my body. the process is internal.<p>given the research on the involuntary nature of habits, i question the ethics of creating these behaviours at all.<p>is it ethical to create involuntary behaviours in your users?<p>is it ethical to judge users for behaviours deliberately created in them by applications?<p>should the attention of users be better protected?<p>can we start developing consumer applications that aren't deliberately designed to capitalise on the attention of their users?<p>how can we educate people to navigate a world of applications designed to hold and capitalise on their attention?<p>media awareness class in high school did not prepare me for this brave new world. :P
Honestly this is the type of thing that motivates me to care about privacy. Arguing against "Why should I care if I don't do anything wrong" never seems like it has an impact on either side of the argument, but this type of data analysis shows very vividly that you can be impacted by this data gathering in very meaningful ways even if you aren't doing anything traditionally thought of as wrong. The even scarier part of this is that these are patterns of borderline subconscious behavior that can "determine" certain traits about you. Before, worrying about posting uncouth content on social media is a very conscious worry/action that you take when representing yourself of the internet. Micromanaging my phone behaviors sounds much more tedious and burdensome.
Articles like this, coupled with my increasing dissatisfaction with how social media makes me feel and how my thought process throughout the day feels fractured, really make me want to give up my smartphone entirely. However, I can't bring myself to get over the fear and dread of being "disconnected".<p>Is there anyone here who has given up their smartphone and has any advice on how you did it, and how you are now? Is it even possible to do so working in a tech field?
We like to think we can find "secrets" by eavesdropping on private data and determining the creditworthiness of someone according to how they enter their contacts onto their address book.<p>But I'm pretty sure the correlation between loans repayment and very public and easily accessible socio-economic data is much stronger than with those quirky behavioral traits, such as: where you live, did you attend / finish college, how you spell, do you have a job, are you married, etc.
I'm a rather unorthodox case in that I own several smartphones, but never use the telephony or even any social and entertainment applications. Instead, I treat them as testing grounds for various alternative platforms like KDE Plasma Mobile, Ubuntu Touch, Replicant, CyanogenMod and so forth.<p>My actual phone is a prepaid flip phone.<p>(At the risk of invoking "le wrong generation," I'm a Millennial. I find a certain humor in observing how older people are glued to their smartphones in spite of the frequent complaints that are implicitly assumed about me. I will grant that pathological smartphone obsession is a disgruntling phenomenon, but hardly contained to Millennials. I frequently find myself the odd one out <i>not</i> checking their smartphone in a waiting room.)
Meh. Creditworthiness based on your online activities is solution looking for a problem. It hardly is issue for loaners today. The problem is how to lend more, not less. So no fear here, if you are good today, you are good tomorrow, no matter the online activity. Secondly if and when really some loaners voluntarily limit their market, there will always be who do not and whose position on the market will be total ignorance of online stuff.
It's really hard to take this seriously. First this "study" for the purpose of making generalizations or deciding credit worthiness is pretty silly. The sample is not representative of much. Whether people put last names in their phone? What is this, pseudo-sociological hokum? Why don't we just use phrenology and call it a day? Why don't we just ask people to move their mouse in a JavaScript app on the credit decision site and those that take "strong ardent movements" will be the most credit worthy. Now the credit counseling services will focus less on getting your finances in order but giving you "insider tips" like "enter last names in your phone" or "keep a second phone for games." This is just a crock of nonsense.<p>It's like "data mining" is a hammer and everything is a nail or something.
It would be beyond great if someone would create an open source version of that graph so I can see just how much of my info is being captured and used for and/or against me on a daily basis.<p>I specifically carry an unlocked android handset that is not connected to a carrier, and use a custom ROM that allows me to turn off my cell radio to prevent that sort of tracking.<p>I use a throwaway google account but do sometimes check my real email thru the device (and so have the account on the device as a user), but sometimes turn on wifi location for various reasons, so I can't really tell how much "they" know.<p>I just wonder...is anything I'm doing really helping things?
If the algorithms are accurate I don't see the problem. If a loan is denied because phone use analysis shows that the applicant most likely won't pay it back, then that's good isn't it?
If you think that what defines you is a series of recorded or remembered events, worrying about this makes a lot of sense.<p>Loan providers using this instead of their predatory bullshit system now seems ok to me.
Site seems to be under heavy load. Mirror (fullpage screenshot):<p><a href="http://i.imgur.com/4cX12xZ.png" rel="nofollow">http://i.imgur.com/4cX12xZ.png</a>