No, I didn't call you

Borrowed from Phil Madina's weather report of May 15, 2019, 9:54 AM

Being in the witness protection program and a technophile I am fascinated and at the same time terrified of the privacy issues of our tech. I’m fascinated at the promise of seamless coordination of our digital lives.

Siri: what’s my next appointment?

-where’s the nearest pizza place?

I get in my car on Sunday morning and my phone asks me: are you going to the bagel shop again? It will take 7 minutes.

Kind of useful stuff.

But then there’s the creep factor where it oversteps its boundaries. Ads pop up in your phone for Dunkin Donuts as you drive past it. Hair Club for Men send you emails a few days after you “accidentally do a couple of searches for info on thinning hair”. Your phone tracks your location constantly and logs where you stop. The companies promise that they won’t use this data for evil purposes but…

Recently, I had a creepy tech intrusion. I teacher I work with showed me a screenshot of an incoming robo-call from our district. It said, “631 730-4900 Possibly Phil Medina”. I’ve gotten those calls and thought little of it since I have that number listed in my phone contacts as my work number. So I occasionally get calls from myself. (definitely helps on days when I’m lonely and no one else calls). But now I had a colleague that I’ve never exchanged phone numbers with, in any way, have my name pop up in her phone with my work number.

Well, after some investigating it appears that this was not an isolated incident and many people have gotten robo-calls tagged with my name. It appears that these weather reports are the culprit! I used to sign each report including my school and contact number here (having now changed it to a number at school that will never call you). If you read my emails on your phone, your phone noticed the number next to my name and it made that connection.

Just for curiosity, if you have gotten any fake calls from me I’d be interested to hear.

With each new innovation in tech, we need to be careful about how integrated our electronics are. As I said, being in the witness protection program (hence the menial job and low profile that I keep) I am particularly aware where my data goes. Facial recognition in Facebook has caught cheaters in pictures with their paramours. Linked Microsoft accounts between home computers and work computers have unexpectedly put home photos on work desktops. I’m sure that GPS patterns have popped up messages suggesting the best route and travel time to somewhere that someone should not have been while someone else was looking at their phone. I recently read an article about a woman who was checked onto a flight without showing her boarding pass simply based on facial recognition, without her permission or knowledge, with a camera at the desk that she didn’t notice. Her identity was confirmed using a Homeland Security database that a private company (the airline) had access to.

 Yes, it’s a bit paranoid. But the flow of information needs to be understood by the user (you) and you need to be able to control what is used and how. It is good practice to occasionally go through your phone and check the privacy settings and which apps have access to things like the camera, microphone, contacts, and GPS positions. And if anything strange pops up such as “looks like you’re heading to Cabo Fresh” you should look into why your phone is doing that and change it if you are not comfortable with it.

Thanks for sharing Phil!