For example, how emotional or stress-resistant you are, how ambitious and impulsive or how well organized and hardworking. Such very personal information can be derived from posts and comments on social networks. Researchers at the Center for Psychometry at the University of Cambridge illustrate this with their site “Apply Magic Sauce.” Here users can upload information from their profiles on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn to see what the internet knows about them. Algorithms then not only determine character traits very accurately, they also create an entire personality profile.
“The internet records almost everything that users do.”
TÜV SÜD expert for cybersecurity Roland Fiat knows the ins and outs of these mechanisms. “The internet records almost everything that users do,” he says. Advertising firms are thus able to analyze the age, gender, interests, contacts, movement profiles and even the fitness level of their target groups. “The apps on our smartphones also record every action and process all the data that we disclose, for commercial purposes.”
In some countries, even users’ behavior when it comes to charging their smartphone battery is being analyzed. Algorithms of credit startups such as InVenture or Branch want to determine the creditworthiness of borrowers without access to traditional banking and credit histories. The focus here is on microloans in developing countries—small amounts between 30 and 50 US dollars. Apparently people who more quickly drain their smartphone’s battery, send more text messages than they receive and save names in their address book without last names are considered less creditworthy. Taken together, such data is supposed to deliver a meaningful profile of a person’s ability to pay. The room rental company Airbnb has even filed a patent for a similar AI system that screens customers online before they book. For the process, a software program sifts through social networks, for example, to assess how trustworthy a guest is. Airbnb hopes to keep insurance payments for damages low this way.
People who let a robot vacuum their living space are also providing advertisers with the floor plan of their home. To protect your privacy, Fiat recommends using browsers such as Firefox by Mozilla, alternative chat services such as Signal instead of WhatsApp, and search engines such as Qwant instead of Google. As Fiat explains, “Users should realize that they aren’t the customers, but the product itself.”
