In an article in the San Francisco Chronicle today, the company that owns TiVo has revealed that they offer TV networks and Ad agencies a chance to review second-by-second data about the viewing habits of the 4.5 million TiVo subscribers.
The data is correlated to what you are watching, seeing what commercials you fast-forward over, or scenes of a show you rewind to watch again. Of course this is extraordinarily valuable information to an Ad agency, as it tells them exactly how much people hate those hideous Lillydale ads, or the execrable Head-On Apply an Axe to My Forehead campaign.
I don’t own a TiVo, or any other Personal Video Recorder that is tied into a cable company or subscription service. I don’t watch enough TV to make it worth my while. I know that Grey’s Anatomy exists, but I’ve never seen it and my sports fix is more than capably satisfied by SpeedTV.
My question: What controls are built into protecting your data? Is there something in the End User Agreement, or the Subscription Agreement that allows the cable company to collect all kinds of data about your viewing habits? Remember TiVo is selling your data for money, so why shouldn’t you make a buck off it too? It is your data and unless you have allowed them to resell your viewing habit data, it is still yours. Isn’t it? No it isn’t. The TiVo Agreement specifically allows them to collect Anonymous Viewing Information and share it with "affiliates and partners".
We’ve talked about data mining before, the ability to cross-tabulate broad statistical data with location data, income data and Credit Bureau data to develop a very accurate picture of your personality. It is an inexact science, but is close enough to make privacy advocates a bit jittery.
Consider this, cross tabulate the Credit Bureau reports for everyone in the L5A 4A1 thru 9 postal code, with the Ministry of Transport data on who owns what kind of car. Overlay the Bell Canada data on phone use, again for a broad geographic area of L5A 4A1 thru 9. Add in viewer data from Rogers Video on Demand or Pay Per View with Stats Canada Census data. You now have a fairly comprehensive data construct of who lives in L5A 4A1 thru 9. I happen to live in the area called L5A 4A3. I would be the datapoint anomaly, waaay over there.
The tinfoil hat brigade is concerned that the Department of Homeland Paranoia, under the Patriot Act, can demand that data from any business. Then Homeland Paranoia will cross tab viewing habits with security databases, like the No-Fly List and commercial employment screening databases like ChoicePoint.
Will this find the Evildoers of Axis of Evil? Not likely, as I would suspect that Osama Bin Laden probably has his TiVo subscription under a name like Raoul Duke or G. Walker Shrub, if he has a sense of humor.
What it can do, however, is allow the government to collect more and more data. They already monitor your banking, email and online behaviors, not to mention phone and cell phone calls. In the UK the number of video surveillance cameras in London and other large cities is approaching 10,000, most of which pan, tilt and zoom to watch suspicious people.
Naturally the old FBI Carnivore email trap system would catch everything and anything. It’s now called DCS-1000 but it does the same things. Under the FCC’s CALEA (Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act) any ISP, VoIP provider or telco has to collect data if a Law Enforcement Agency says they have to.
Echelon is a little more discriminating, or at least that’s what we’re told and there are significant controls on the data. Why not walk up to CFS Leitrim (an Echelon site in the suburbs of Ottawa) and ask to see anything they might have on your email, or telex, fax or phone calls? It will be an interesting conversation right up to the point that the RCMP puts the cuffs on your wrists.
The danger of collecting all this data is the lack of control over who gets to use it and how they get to use it. There is no mechanism to dispute contents, control access or to remove erroneous entries.
Just for giggles, try to get something removed from your Credit Bureau file. The Credit Bureau is interested in more data, not necessarily good data, so expect to see every letter and phone call to them documented in your file. The mere fact that you dispute an entry from such an august and honourable organization as the Credit Bureau flags your file as a shit-disturber, which means someone who might want to hire you will see those entries too.
To quote from the SF Chronicle article: "I promise with my hand on a Bible that your data is not being archived and sold," said Todd Juenger, TiVo’s vice president and general manager of audience research and measurement.
There was a quote from an article in the Guardian, regarding the UK police turning their surveillance cameras into various homes which went approximately "We wouldn’t do that." As for the Department of Homeland Paranoia, well, they won’t talk about it, because of "National Security".
All of which comes back to the government asking us to trust them. Let’s see. Hmmn. Is the phrase "Eff Off!" one of my choices?
RoadDave 