Massively interesting project at Zeit Online exploring privacy (or lack thereof) and our cell phones. German politician Malte Spitz took six months worth of his phone data from German telecoms giant Deutsche Telekom (he had to sue them to get it) and gave it to Zeit Online for mapping, making a fascinating re-creation of his life, as seen from his cell phone. Zeit combined the geolocation data from his phone with other publicly available information about Spitz found on the Internet, such as Twitter feeds, blogs & websites.
From the Zeit article, “Betrayed by our own data“:
This profile reveals when Spitz walked down the street, when he took a train, when he was in an airplane. It shows where he was in the cities he visited. It shows when he worked and when he slept, when he could be reached by phone and when was unavailable. It shows when he preferred to talk on his phone and when he preferred to send a text message. It shows which beer gardens he liked to visit in his free time. All in all, it reveals an entire life.
As noted in the article, there have been very few real-world examples of exactly what can be learned when you compile the various bits & pieces of ourselves we leave floating around in the digital world. This project does an incredible job of highlighting that. Can’t wait to see more projects like this.