Your phone company is watching Malte Spitz
hi this is my mobile phone a mobile
phone can change your life and a mobile
phone gives you individual freedom with
a mobile phone you can shoot a crime
against humanity in Syria with a mobile
phone you can tweet a message and start
a protest in Egypt and where is a mobile
phone you can record a song loaded up to
SoundCloud and become famous all this is
possible with your mobile phone I’m a
child of 1984 and I live in the city of
Berlin let’s go back to that time to
this city here you can see how hundreds
of thousands of people stood up and
protested for change this is autumn 1989
and you imagine that all those people
standing up and protesting for change
had a mobile phone in their pocket who
in the room has a mobile phone with you
hold it up hold your phone’s up all your
phone’s up hold it up an android
blackberry wow that’s a lot almost
everybody today as a mobile phone but
today I will talk about million my
mobile phone and how it changed my life
and I will talk about this these are
thirty five thousand eight hundred
thirty lines of information raw data and
why are these information there
because in the summer of 2006 the EU
Commission tabled a directive this
directive called data retention
directive this directive says that each
phone company in Europe each Internet
service company all over Europe has to
store a wide range of information about
their users who called soon who sent him
an email who sent him a text message and
if you use your mobile phone where you
are all these information are stored for
at least six months up to two years by
your phone company or your internet
service provider and all over Europe
people stood up and said we don’t want
this they said we don’t want this data
retention we want self-determination in
the digital age and we don’t want that
phone companies and Internet companies
have to store all this information about
us they were lawyers journalists priests
they all said we don’t want this and
here you can see like ten thousands of
people went out on the streets of Berlin
and said freedom not fear and some even
said this would be Stasi 2.0 Stasi was a
secret
police in East Germany and I also asked
myself does it really work can they
really store all these information about
us every time I use my mobile phone so I
asked my phone company Deutsche Telekom
which was at that time the largest phone
company in Germany and I asked him
please send me all the information you
have stored about me and I asked him
once and I asked him again and I got no
real answer it was only blah blah
answers but then I said I want to have
this information because this is my life
you are rotor calling so I decided
to start the lawsuit against them
because I wanted to have this
information but doctor Telecom said no
we will not give you this information so
at the end I had a settlement with them
I put down the lawsuit and they will
send me all the informations I asked for
because in the meantime the German
Constitutional Court ruled that the
implementation of this e2 directive into
German law was unconstitutional so I got
this ugly brown envelope with the CD
inside and on the city this was on
thirty five thousand eight hundred
thirty lines of information and first I
saw it and I said ok it’s a huge file ok
but then after a while I realized this
is my life this is six months of my life
into this file so I was a little bit
skeptical what should I do with it
because you can see where I am where I
sleep at night what am i doing but then
I said I want to go out with these
information I want to make some public
because I want to show the people what
does data retention mean so together
with side online and open data city I
did this this is a visualization of six
months of my life you can zoom in and
zoom out you can whine back and first
robot you can see every step I take and
you can even see how I go from Frankfurt
by train to Cologne and how often I call
in between all this is possible with
these information that’s a little bit
scary
but it is not only about me it’s about
all of us first it’s only like I call my
wife and she calls me and we talk to
each other a couple of times and then
there are some friends calling me and
they call each other and after a while
you are calling you and you are calling
you and you have this great
communication network but you can see
how your people are communicating with
each other what times I call it other
when they go to bed you can see all this
you can see the haps like who has a
leaders in a group if you have access to
these information you can see what your
society is doing if you have access to
these information you can control your
society this is a blueprint for
countries like China and Iran this is a
blueprint how to surveil your society
because do you know who talks to whom
who sends him an email
all this is possible if you have access
to these information and these
information has taught for at least six
months in Europe up to two years like I
said at the beginning you imagine that
all those people on the streets of
Berlin in autumn of 1989 had a mobile
phone in their pocket and SISTAR’s would
have known who took part at this protest
and if the Stasi would have known who
has the leaders behind it this may never
have happened the fall of the Berlin
Wall would maybe not there and in the
aftermath also not the fall of the Iron
Curtain
because today state agencies and
companies want to store as much
information as they can get about us
online and offline they want to have the
possibility to track our lives and they
want to store them for all time
self-determination and living in the
digital age is no contradiction but you
have to fight for yourself determination
today to have to fight for it every day
so when you go home tell your friends
that privacy is a value of the 21st
century and it’s not outdated when you
go home tell your representative only
because companies and state agencies
have the possibility to store certain
information they don’t have to do it and
if you don’t believe me ask your phone
company what information they store
about you so in the future every time
you use your mobile phone had it be a
reminder to you that you have to fight
for self-determination in the digital
age