26/07/2014 Click

wreckage, and one black box has been found. Chris Rogers will be here at

the top of the hour. Now, it is time for Click.

Hi, just to let you know I am male and I really like watches. I work in

London, but I passed by here every weekend. I am 41 years old, but I am

a massive fan of One Direction. Your movements, your habits, your

interests. This week on Click we will show you how much your phone is

saying about you without your knowledge. We will meet the people

trying to stop it, and we will find out how to bend the technology to

Aaron Keating, as we turn a London street into a musical wonderland.

All that, plus the latest tech news in Webscape.

Welcome to Click, I am Spencer Kelly, and welcome to York. This is

an ancient English city, but it is doing some 21st`century things. Of

the millions of tourists who visit here every year, more and more want

to go online while they are here using their smartphones, and York is

one of the first UK cities to offer its own citywide free Wi`Fi. Now, I

say free, but we'll know what they say about free lunches, their

run`on. So, do you wonder what you are giving up when you go online?

These dots are shop customers, moving around the store in real

time. It is actually their mobiles that are being tracked, and it is

happening without their owners' knowledge. When your devices

searching for a Wi`Fi network, it repeatedly broadcast short pings of

information, which includes its MAC address, a numerical code. The

system listens for the pings and by triangulating their Origin it can

get tricky accurate idea of where you have been, even if you never

actually connect to the Wi`Fi. From this location map, we know exactly

where a lot of people are spending time, and we can filter the data,

how many minutes they are spending. For example, if they are spending

three minutes in the chilled area, that helps us to improve the area.

Although the system doesn't tell it anything about you, as soon as you

connect to the free Wi`Fi are offered everything changes. When you

login with Facebook, Twitter, or an e`mail address, all of that historic

location data is then linked to your profile, to you. And it is not just

within the walls of Wi`Fi system logs data, it also

picks up thousands of passers`by everyday, many of whom may never

enter the shop at all. Now, this system works on something the size

of a shop, but in York, the analytics company behind it, Purple

WiFi, is planning something on a much larger scale. By 2015, it is

hoping to install the same tracking to knowledge it across whole parts

of the city. Unlike the shop `based system, at the moment it is still

quite limited, and only tracks your rough location, even once you have

logged on. Even that information is proving useful to the York council.

It is early days, but already we can actually tell the people who are

using the Wi`Fi, where they are coming from in terms of Origin, and

where they are going inside York. It gives us a better insight into the

foot fall. We see a vast number of people who are logging on our

middle`aged females from outside the UK. When the full location tracking

and profile system goes live next year, the deal will be this. You get

free Wi`Fi in exchange for information about who you are and

where you have been. So, is this a fair trade? Purple WiFi's boss told

me that you would see plenty of benefits if you are willing to give

up that information. In a city type scenario, like this, it is

understanding where the choke points are, where is the traffic of

people, how do they move? If you take it a step forward you can take

that data and control lighting or parking. It does mean that before

you log onto the Wi`Fi you don't have so much information about that

reticular device's movements, which I guess is annoying. It is and it

isn't. There is a value in understanding how devices generally

move around, because we get anonymous data, so that is useful.

Where it becomes really useful is once we know more about you, your

age, social interests, gender, who you are friends with, that is when

we can start to push hyper local relevant information. Here is the

thing. Remember this system can match personal information to your

device's movement before you log onto the network? Well, Purple WiFi

is planning to keep that location data for up to a year. How do you

think people will feel about you knowing that? We won't tracking you

for 12 months, we were tracking a device. A device that you now know

is mine. Absolutely. Every bit of feedback is that if you are giving

me something relevant, I am happy. If you are sending me a load of

spam, don't bother. All this information is there in the terms

and conditions that need to be accepted before you logon. You know,

those terms and conditions, the ones that we all read thoroughly before

we clicked OK. You think people actually read them? I think if you

take any situation, no, I don't think they will. Have you ever

actually read the terms and conditions? No, I don't think so.

There is no right or wrong answer, is there? Do you think that clicking

to read terms and conditions goes far enough? I think so. There is a

value trade. You will get a free Wi`Fi, which comes at a small trade

of your personal information. Is there an option for people to use

the Wi`Fi being able to opt out of having their information tracked?

No. I don't think there should be. It is a fair exchange. There is a

cost to put the equipment, the overlay of software, and it is a

fair exchange value. You want free Wi`Fi up because you don't want to

use up your data. The exchange value is that you will share that data.

These insights are only possible because of a unique combination of

location information and demographic social media information. The

harvesting of anonymous device information is described as a grey

area in terms of data protection. Last year, the city of London band

Wi`Fi enabled dustbins installed on public streets, after it emerged

that they were logging MAC address is in a similar way, without getting

explicit consent from passers`by. Although you just heard Gavin

Wheeldon tell me he didn't think there should be an option to opt out

of having your MAC address recorded, after our interview,

Purple WiFi got back in touch with us and said they may consider an opt

out system. I'm not sure how definite that sounds to you, but

anyway... This issue of opting out has already reared its head in the

US. We went to Washington to investigate something called the

Wireless Registry, which may allow you to take back control of the data

associated with your phone. If the idea of constant retail

tracking doesn't appeal to you, what can you do about it? As we have

seen, your phone sends out a unique identifier called a MAC address. One

start`up, called the Wireless Registry, wants to help people take

back control of what it calls your proximal identity, the signals you

commit from your smartphone. We are allowing people to take control of

their signal and decide what is associated with it. The idea is to

allow people to take control of their smartphone identity, they can

register and decide what is associated with the identity. With

the Wireless Registry, you can choose to opt out of having their

data associated with your MAC address trapped. It has created the

platform, smartstoreprivacy.org, where you can enter your MAC address

for Wi`Fi and Bluetooth, and a range of major retail traders say they

won't get your information. This code of conduct is being followed,

which is focused at American users, but the wireless register wants to

take it around the world. We take wireless registrations from every

asset around the world, and we are in global negotiations, and we think

it is another barrier that has been in the way for developers. In the

US, where you don't have general data protection rights to protect

you against this kind of tracking, in the Wireless Registry opt out is

a step forward. I do think that most people won't be aware that the

technologies being used all, never mind that they have to go and

register with a specific opt out registry. Not only do people not

know where to look, but when you do find information about privacy it

can be confusing. People are campaigning to make privacy terms

and conditions associated with websites much more readable and

transparent. A recent study by Deloitte said it would take the

average wreckage user up to 31 hours per year to properly read through

the terms. I don't think it is wrong to say that so long as there is a

privacy policy that someone has clicked OK to, they have consented

to everything in it. In recent weeks we heard Apple was working on

creating a new privacy platform for its iOS8 operating system. It will

randomise MAC addresses, so the unique identifier may be different

every time. If they go ahead with it, it could be a huge blow for

retail data collection. Of course, you could just turn off your blue

Bluetooth and Wi`Fi on your phone. That is not what the Wireless

Registry wants you to do. As well as the opt out option, there is an opt

in, allowing you to share your personal data and control the

wireless identity you broadcast around you. I signed up and created

my own hotspot and linked my social networks to it. We can put your

LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter to your wireless signal, so any time

you want someone to pick it up by being in proximity to you, they can

see your social media. I can click on your Twitter and would be able to

follow your feed just by being within proximity. While it appear

strange to some that a stranger could sit next to you and see so

much personal data, at least now there are systems emerging that

allow others to control what other people say. Now you have heard all

sides of the story, the questions are obvious. What you think about

the fact your phone could be tracked even before you have consented? Are

you excited it. In which case, tell us why. If not, what is your biggest

fear? Google is meeting date of regulators

from across the EU to discuss implications of the recent white to

be forgotten ruling. The court stated in May that links to

irrelevant and outdated Dato should be erased from searches on the

quest. `` on request. Some said it could lead to censorship. Google is

said to have received more than 70,000 requests for links to be

taken down, since the court ruling was made. An electronics firm, is a

new wristband. The Chinese company sold over 50 million phones since it

make it `` began making them three years ago. The wristband says it

will monitor your activity and sleep patterns, as well as lock the phone

via Bluetooth, all for just $13. And if you are missing the World Cup,

this might help. Sort of. The Robocup kicked off in Brazil this

week. Robotic teams from 35 countries are taking part in the

annual event, which started in 97. Unlike real football as these

robotic players can't dive and we are pretty sure they don't bite,

either! We've seen how your phone can be

tracked using Wi`Fi. It can also be tracked using Bluetooth. In fact,

some shops have already installed so`called Bluetooth beacons, which

work out where you are and send you tailored information. It turns out

Apple is betting big time on beacons. We know that because it has

added the letter i in front of the title. LJ Rich has bended one of

these beacons to her will. London's Regent Street, now with

added technology. Beacons. Small transmitters that are like real

world hyperlinks, sending you virtual data based

location. Its prime shopping real estate and this bring around 100

stores have installed iBeacon is to back and asked customers inside.

Yes, install their special Apple, have Bluetooth turned on and you can

be pinged with personalised content. `` special app. There are many

different beacons. They all have a special component, a low energy

transmitter. When you use your phone, the close your phone gets to

the transmitter this band sends out a little signal that the application

recognises. It says I want to pay for something or he is some

information and that's basically it. But beacons don't have to just

pinged do adverts, or they do is transmit data based on how close you

are. Here in London's Brixton, on coffee house has upped its hipster

quota by installing a beacon by the counter. With the right application

running, the screen pops up when I'm close to the pills I `` close to the

pills I can pay for my skinny flat white. But it has to be in the local

currency, the Brixton pound. We are the first network of shops to be

using beacons for the payments. Up until now beacons have tended to be

used in larger businesses, mainly for marketing. When you go into a

shop, it will automatically pop up and tell you where you are. You

might be sat down having your copy and you see that there's a big

queue. You know how much the copy costs. The beacon tells you where

you are. You just have to write in the amount and quicksand and then

you've paid, you can walk out. You are going to see many more beacons.

One museum uses them to trigger audio guides, so there are ways to

use them outside of marketing. The new technologies itching to be

played with. I wanted to try something. So, over copy with this

developer Jacub Tomanik, we hatched a plan. The beacons in Regent Street

were broadcast out to the street, so I've thought we could pick up the

broadcast and make music with it instead of just being encouraged to

buy new genes. He agreed. We gave our weekend to the project. He

quoted, I composed and then mapped the existing beacons in Regent

Street using an android app. Now it was time to try it out. We can see

the beacon ID, major and minor number. That basically allows us to

trigger our own app and play some music. Right. All this is just to

record it, otherwise you could put your own headphones in. But this is

one for me, one for Click. As a world first, these are Regent Street

beacons mapped in music. Each beacon is assigned a music

track as soon as it is detected, and signal strength becomes the volume

control. Walking along the street changes the volume. Some trucks get

louder, others softer. You are a human mixer, mixing the music by

changing your location. `` tracks. I think we can call this a success?

I'm really happy. OK, this is eccentric. But as well `` as well as

the fun of making these installations, this highlights more

other practical uses for existing beacons, like an app that speaks a

station's name or loudly as you approach it. It could be useful if

you have impaired vision. Or as you walk to your favourite cafe. The

usual order is set aside. We could even map information for tourists as

they walked past landmarks. It looks like beacons will make us more

connected than at. `` than ever. That is a classic view

of York. It is one worthy of a selfie, if you don't mind. Give me a

second. I don't know about you but the problem I have with them is I

always appear too big in the frame. My arm needs to be about three times

as long. You have the same problem? Don't worry. Kate Russell has an

application for that now, unsurprisingly. Here comes Webscape.

It's all very well recording those special moments on your smartphone

camera, but if you are always the snapper, the downside is you never

appear in the snaps. To fix this, use FrontBack. An ingenious free app

for iOS and android that splits the photo between the front and the back

camera views, capturing new, capturing the view.

`` capturing you. You need to take to snaps. The first captures the

subject, then the bottom panel opens up for you to snap the reverse

image. Then you just saved to your camera roll and share on the usual

social channels. Of course you can be as imaginative as you like with

your captures, gaining followers and fans if you are creative enough.

Another app defeat the ego is YouCam Perfect, also free on iOS and

android. This selfie snapper lets you apply Fx and has beautifying and

facial enhancement modes to smooth out skin `` add a town or shave off

a pig `` of a few pounds. Both can be enhanced. Once finished, you can

build a collage and share with all of your friends. Lucky them!

If you are disabled, you might find it hard to know where you can go on

holiday or for family days out without experiencing access issues.

That's why disabled husband and father Michael Holden put together

Trip`Ability, a place for those with hands`on experience to leave reviews

about various destinations and how truly accessible they are. Michael

Cole me his motivation for creating this site was so that he could treat

his family to the same kind of days out at his able`bodied friends,

without arriving at the venue to find it wasn't as accessible as

promised. There is a good community already posting and leaving

recommendations. At a site like this arrives when more people

contribute. `` but aside. Make sure you sign up and leave your own

opinions on the places you visit, and have good or bad access.

Last week we looked at some summer holiday essentials, and now, to make

sure you don't forget to pack anything, PowerPoint app has

launched on iOS and android. `` Packpnt. Kelly Taylor and you are

going and for how long and what you expect to do and it will build your

perfect packing list. Complete with weather forecast.

And another app we looked out late last year for android was Ingress.

An augmented reality game that turns the world around you into a capture

the flag style game, to get you moving more. It went down very well

with android using Click viewers, so now I'm pleased to let you know that

it's available on iOS as well. Kate Russell's Webscape. If you'd

like to suggest a website or app for her, please e`mail us. You can also

contact us on Twitter and Facebook. For more from us throughout the

week, check out our website. That's it for now. Hope you've enjoyed it.

Thanks for watching. It has been an interesting week of

weather. Too hot for some. Many of us have been dry, others have stayed

cloudy and misty and there have been violent thunderstorms scattered

around. It will gradually turn cooler on the weekend. Some

scattered showers. This is