Abstract
Since 2013, a stream of disclosures has prompted reconsideration of surveillance lawand policy. One of themost controversial principles, both in the United States and abroad, is that communications metadata receives substantially less protection than communications content. Several nations currently collect telephone metadata in bulk, including on their own citizens. In this paper, we attempt to shed light on the privacy properties of telephone metadata. Using a crowdsourcing methodology,we demonstrate that telephone metadata is densely interconnected, can trivially be reidentified, and can be used to draw sensitive inferences.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 5536-5541 |
Number of pages | 6 |
Journal | Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America |
Volume | 113 |
Issue number | 20 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - May 17 2016 |
Externally published | Yes |
All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes
- General
Keywords
- Metadata
- Privacy
- Social network
- Surveillance
- Telephone