Malte Spitz: Your phone company is watching

I just came across a video from Tedtalks which I think many will find very interesting.

Your Phone Company is Watching

What kind of data is your cell phone company collecting? Malte Spitz wasn’t too worried when he asked his operator in Germany to share information stored about him. Multiple unanswered requests and a lawsuit later, Spitz received 35,830 lines of code -- a detailed, nearly minute-by-minute account of half a year of his life.

I went to this page, and was able to view for myself that 6 months. I am blown away by this (though I was aware it was being done, it's something else altogether to see it); every piece of data has been renderd in a visual format, using google earth, and you can literally see everything this person did for the last 6 months. The detail is astonishing.

Now I feel a little better about not having a cellphone.

reply to post by anon4m05


The government already has access to our phone conversations,e-mails and facebook messages.

They claim that it is for 'defence purposes' that they check our private conversations.

Sad but true.

What is the big deal about government having access to cell phones, land lines and internet?

This is very, very old news. It is something my father drilled into our minds when we were childen in the 50's,

He had a nicely painted and framed picture of a human ear where we could not help but see it when we sat at the telephone table that so many people then used.

Have humans gone to sleep for a couple of decades and have just now woke up?

I thought everyone knew that anything you say or write or type on any instrument as well as uttered words can be heard by whom ever wishes to hear as long as they have the necessary equiptment.

Please forgive and inform me if I have misunderstood the message of this thread.

Doesn't surprise me at all, that's why I've always used an unregistered, cash paid 3G phone - not a perfect solution but at least the corporate business offering my service have no idea who I actually am. The government is a different issue but hey, I don't do anything illegal so I'm not too worried.

I've got a thread Here for anyone interested, but my focus there is the censorship on certain internet sites while the phone remains unregistered. Another poster kindly advised me about using a free VPN service, which I now do, and that has circumvented the censorship and increased the privacy

reply to post by dizziedame


Forgive me, I will clarify; the link I provided gives an example of the immensity of the data collection, which is what I am trying to highlight. I'm sure we all know that the information is recorded, but it may be unclear as to the scope of that activity. The link I provided gives people an idea of this, and though I was aware this has been going on for some time, I was nonetheless blown away by the detail contianed within that data