26/07/2014 Click

have been detained at the border with Mexico, mostly in drug`related

violence and poverty. 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 pass by here every weekend. I am 41 years old, but I am

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

interests. 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, there are none. 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 device is searching for a Wi`Fi network, it repeatedly

broadcasts 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 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 the shop at the

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 in 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

technology 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 are 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. Why

are the lights on if there are no people there? It does mean that

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

that particular 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 be tracking

you for 12 months, we are 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 click OK... You think people actually read them? Do you think

that clicking 'Yes' to 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 who 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 banned Wi`Fi enabled dustbins installed on public

streets, after it emerged that they were logging MAC addresses 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 tracked. 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 track 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 have

intended from day one to be global. We take every character set around

the world, and we are in discussions globally, and we think that is just

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

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

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

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

technology is being used at 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 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 attach 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 us to control what other

people say. That is it for the short version, if you want more, go to

either player. The full version of the programme is there right now. We

will see you next time.