Do you know how much your phone says about you?

Smartphones are well named. They’re smart. They know where you go, what you buy, what you are looking for and even when you go to bed.

Trouble is, smartphones aren’t discreet. They don’t keep all your information to themselves. They share it with all sorts of apps that you download to your phone.

Companies that track you online – Google and Facebook prime amongst them – are now tracking you off line as well as on. It used to be that they had to tell you about cookies, but now they can track you through your device and you don’t even know. Worried that the Government has too much information about you? Well, perhaps it’s time you thought about how much commercial companies hold. They don’t do it for “national security”, they only do it because they want to make more money out of you  - by selling your data to better target ads to get you spend more.

A leading company in the new tracking business is called Drawbridge (http://www.drawbrid.ge/). They have a ticker counter on their homepage that computes the number of devices that have now been “bridged” for “precision audience targeting”. So far it’s over 922 million… Founded by a former Google data scientist, Drawbridge can determine that a cellphone, work computer, home computer and tablet belong to the same person, even if the devices are in no way connected. 

Feeling slightly concerned? You should be. Other comparable companies include Flurry, Velti and Session M… Never heard of them either? Hmmm. And what about your wireless carrier, I hear you ask…want to know what they are doing with your info? Well, Verizon is now asking customers to “opt in” to share information with advertisers and AT&T is planning on starting selling customer data to marketers.

So the next debate you have about Governments and privacy, perhaps you should broaden the discussion… Do you really trust a multi-national who is focused only on the bottom line and its share price to do what even your Government didn’t – that is to say, protect your privacy and stay out of your personal space?