Location tracking, data and your privacy

On Thursday 18th September, RTÉ Primetime reported on the ease of access to two weeks worth of continuous location data from 64,000 users from data brokers, an integral element in the modern world of digital advertising.

Even though the data was anonymised to ensure compliance with GDPR, each location was linked to a consistent device identifier, allowing the movement of the device, and therefore the owner, to be tracked through the data.

Using only simple tools and a curious mind, exploring where the user spends the night discloses their home address with unerring accuracy and following their route to work can identify the individual, their employer and potentially their job.

Core to the story is that this is overtly legal, covered by the terms and agreements associated with many mobile apps, especially free apps, which users often blindly accept without understanding the implications or consequences.

As developers and publishers of the Able Active app, we are fanatical about how we gather and process your data, and to the purposes for which we do so:

1. We first use your location to show what trails and amenities are available nearest to your current location, overlaid with weather alerts;
2. using the app, you can track your walk, hike or cycle, which will activate background location tracking, but only to record your route and only for the duration of your activity;
3. we may report on trail usage based on the above data to verified partner organisations, who must be a stakeholder in providing access to the trails and only every showing statistical usage along their specified trails, never sharing the locations of individual users;
4. we rely on some external service providers to deliver a strong user experience:
   1. Google and Apple to host the app in their app stores, to allow secure login using their Sign in with... options and to deliver push notifications;
   2. Bulk SMS to delivery SMS messages;
5. we do not integrate with external advertising platforms.

We continuously review how we use your data and how it can be used to better inform investment and decision making that directly and positively benefits our users and society.

Commercially, we offer engagement and participation management services with an extension of these privacy commitments, aiming to help the organisations that offer services to our shared community in providing a safer digital environment.

I welcome an open discussion on the use and value of data in the modern world, without adding to the deep individual profiling that drives online advertising.

As a parting thought, for all your apps, spend a little time in your device settings to review the permissions for your installed apps. It may feel a little daunting, take some time.

Adrian Geissel,
Founder and CEO, Surpass Sport Systems