Goodbye Privacy Your love and affair are naked! April 13 18:43

"Your hobbies and incomes that you don't even know about your address, your family structure, and your family and people around you can be naked."

How do you feel when someone new meets you? In fact, an experiment conducted by NHK and an IT company this time revealed that using the data on smartphone usage history can make you feel like a fortune teller. A modern society in which everything is converted into data and analyzed by AI to develop convenient services and products. Some even point out that "privacy is no longer yours." How much data is being transmitted from the smartphone you are casually using now? (Ryoto Iga, Economic Affairs Reporter, Kosuke Aoki, Director, International Program Division, Political Science and Economics)

9 years of life is only 2.74GB

This time, Mr. X (a pseudonym) has decided to provide personal information on the smartphone as the material. He said he couldn't let go of his smartphone while he was awake.

"I thought it would be interesting to see how much human prediction and control could be controlled with data and AI alone."

What we provided is Google's usage history. Giant IT companies such as Google have provided a mechanism for users to download their histories. The aim is to increase transparency by using the service to understand what data is stored.

The usage history downloaded by Mr. X is 9 years. The data amount is only 2.74GB. Upon agreement, they were provided. Considering that the capacity of a single 120-minute recording DVD that is generally sold is 4.7 GB, it is surprising that nine years of data are packed.

The experiment is conducted by IT company misosil, which analyzes personal data for marketing. He did not give any information about Mr. X in advance, including his gender and age. However, he was confident that "you can get a personal image of Mr. X just by using data without having to meet him."

You can understand this far from just the location information!

Will that be true? The experimental team first analyzed location information. Two types of data were recorded as position information.

First, when and where were you? Records from the date and time to the latitude, longitude, and altitude are recorded in 1 / 1000th of a second.

The other is an estimate of the speed and type of movement. Are you walking or on a vehicle? Not only cars and trains, but also the most probable of the 15 modes of transportation, such as yachts and skis, were recorded.

At first glance, a large amount of data that appears to be just a series of numbers is automatically dropped onto a map by programming.

Then, only one week's data revealed that the living area was the Osaka area. He identified his home because he concentrated on apartments with the most points.

By examining the information on this apartment on the property information site, it was found that it was an apartment for singles of around 20 square meters. Presumed to be single from layout. The height is recorded as "7 to 8 meters", so it is said to be a room on the third floor.

If your location is concentrated on the map next to your home, the bar name will be displayed. Because he stayed at night, he speculated that he was working here. Here's the first answer. When the report team visits the bar determined by the analysis ... X's figure there!

According to his analysis, he was the owner of the bar, and his home address was also single. He is 32 years old.

Location information is recorded by various smartphone apps. In addition to the map application, SNS, weather forecast, traffic information. Many people will be using it because they can get useful information depending on where they are. On the other hand, it turned out that the location information could approach the real image of the smartphone user.

Revenue from search history

The next analysis was search history data. X first searched on June 16, 2011. There have been 35,765 search results left over the past nine years.

When I took out a month's worth of data, the search time was characteristic. After 8:00 pm, when the bar seemed to be open, the search had not dropped. The experimental team speculated that the search might have been killed.

In the search histories of the same period, combinations of service names such as Internet lines and video distribution and the word "cancellation" frequently appeared.

(Experiment team)
"Every day, savings and working capital are going down, we may not be able to attract customers, and we may not be able to go short or quick."

So the second answer. In November last year, the balance of the bar was a deficit of 411 yen, and the management was certainly at a standstill.

Until XX ...

Further analysis extends to Mr. X's internals. The search for dating spots and sexual relations with her disappeared last spring, so she speculated that she had left her now.

He pointed out that "there is a high possibility that he was cheating" because there are many words such as "Cabaracla" and "Dating". Try hitting yourself.

Q: Who are you currently interacting with?
A: Not at all.
Q: Why did you break up with her?
A: Well, I was really useless, and there were some parts where the female habit was bad. That is the cause.
Q: What do you think you can see?
A: Well, cheating. I.

Predict behavior with data?

In addition, the test team even said that he could predict Mr. X's behavior.

He predicted that Mr. X was likely to start a new job. Analyzing the changes in search history over time showed that since the latter half of last year, more and more keywords are reminding us that the economic situation is getting worse. When I visit Mr. X three weeks later.

He had begun part-time delivery of lunch boxes as expected. The experimental team points out:

"The search history isn't just data for a single day, but you can see how the search has changed and how that person's life has changed."

Say goodbye to privacy?

This analysis is only an experiment and cannot be realized without the consent of the individual. It does not indicate that GAFA, which has a large amount of data, is conducting such an analysis.

On the other hand, various companies are now analyzing data collected through apps and other means, and are focusing on providing advertisements and services that match the users' hobbies and interests. How to stimulate consumers' willingness to take action and take action is the key to competition. This is because the data is said to be oil in the 21st century.

Some companies analyze data and provide it to other companies without the user's knowledge. Such concerns are growing.

According to a survey of eight cities around the world, including Tokyo and New York, two-thirds of generations who have been familiar with smartphones since they were 13 to 22 years old said, "Online behavior is not private. The age of personal privacy is over. "(Source: CommScope, 2017).

Mr. X, who participated in the experiment, said as follows.

"I'm honestly surprised, but there's no problem at all with that level of privacy.

After the experiment was over, Mr. X's back, leaving his smartphone in one hand, showed a fluctuating sense of privacy.

Economic Department Reporter
Akihito Iga Joined in 2006 Sendai Bureau Okinawa Bureau Economics Department

Director of Political Science and International Program Division
Kosuke Aoki Joined Tokushima Broadcasting Station in 2009