My Privacy Run In With Big Brother Tonight: A Small Incident That Has Me Awake & Posting At 3am.

I'm awake laying in bed right now writing this post on the same phone that gave me a bit of a shock last night. We all are aware that we are spied on and some of us take small, sensible precautions to try to minimise this.

monkiesfightingrobots.com with this well recognised snap from the film 1984

I watch what I say around the phone when discussing some topics for example so Google can't harvest my every opinion on controversial topics, I've never consented to a browser caching my credit card details (although now I notice that Chrome does this and asks if I'd like to populate Web payment field with my most recently used card) and I always minimise the permissions that apps have on my phone especially related to access to call & text history, contact information, video, audio & location. I'm dubious that these permissions are honored but I try.

So last night we just felt like Indian. I searched on Google using my phone for Indian restaurants in my suburb. Found one and viewed it in Google maps. We drove there and found the info was stale as the restaurant had closed down. We then parked and walked around the streets looking for alternatives. We happened to find another Indian of a different name a few blocks away. Great! Let's order here.

Now I had my phone in my pocket and my wife had hers too. We spoke with the lady at the counter and I googled "Samosa" on my phone there to show the lady and query whether they had that on the menu. I paid with my credit card and then we wandered the complex waiting for our order.

After 20 min or so I was back in the shop collecting the bags and driving home. We'd not yet started to eat when a notification beeped on my phone. It appeared to be Maps asking me to rate my experience patronising the exact Indian place we'd purchased from. The restaurant was referenced correctly by name & I was somewhat struck numb.

I really felt violated. I know I avoid opting in on any service or feature that would allow the communication of information required to assess my activities like this. I am fairly certain it would have required a combination of inputs; likely my GPS location along with tower information, it may have referenced my two google searches to take a stab at the likely type of culinary purchase I was making but the fool proof input would have been the vendor information on the credit card I used to by that Google has their grubby mits on. I don't ever use tap and pay on the phone. Haven't even configured it.

I clicked on the phone request out of interest & it had my full name (google account) at a page where reviews can be posted for dining establishments in Maps. Again, they got the restaruant name and location spot on.

I hated it. It just really got to me. So I'm up typing about it. My wife's phone didn't ask for a review and she'd left the same geo breadcrumbs and was exposed to the same voice conversations more or less.

I think I'm going to start usung cash more (while it's still a thing). It's inconvenient but I'm going to do it.

I hate the fact that my car reports not only my location but driving telemetry, vehicle health, time to next service, parts needed, wear levels and all sorts of other stuff back to the dealer network. It even predicts a convenient time to book your next service with the dealer so it must have schedule algorithms running based on my usual movements. Perhaps it's time to get serious about opting for a "dumber" tow rig.

I've got a not-so-smart (probably naughties) vintage Samsung phone that I may dust off and start using. I'd hate to swap sim cards around but aside from the odd browse of the net at lunch and texting I don't use the phone much when out of the house.

I have years of history in gmail and google calendar alone that's very integral in how I plan my life. That'd be a mess to disassociate from but I do have another paid email account hosted out of the US that I use for certain things and maybe I could use that more heavily.

I could set up and an Ubuntu box at home for general browsing use. Been toying with that idea for a while too.

I'd really like to know the cache of information big brother has stored on me. I'd wager it'd be frightening.

Does anyone else worry about the implications of the increasing big brother in-the-pocket situation? Could you go back to checking email once a day at home? Would it make me more suspicious by not having the typical smart phone footprint? There isn't much that keeps me up at night but for some reason this issue is one. In my experience that means a gut feeling that is not wise to ignore.

Thanks for reading my late ramblings and as always, constructive comments welcome!