Information Privacy: Blog Post (Panel 6)
By:Harry Grabow
http://www.marketplace.org/2016/02/10/business/new-frontier-voter-tracking
http://fusion.net/story/268108/dstillery-clever-tracking-trick/
In the first United States Presidential campaign since the 2013 Snowden, candidates have expressed varying opinions of both the man and the reality he exposed: while some have mildly praised his impact on the privacy discourse while questioning the legality and intelligence of his conduct (see here and here), others have gone as far as insisting that he is a traitor, or even an active Russian spy, prompting a response from the Kremlin itself.
However, while the candidates’ focus remains on the legitimate national security and civil liberties implications of government surveillance, another use of data collection is taking the campaign season by storm: the creation of voter profiles based on mobile device advertising profiles of individuals at polling places. Traditionally the domain of phone-based public polling and on-site exit polls, digital advertising company Dstillery engineered a way – both creative and creepy in equal measure – to track voter preferences by matching mobile device identifiers present at the geographical locations of caucus sites, to the digital advertising profiles of the device’s owners. Specifically, they monitored the real-time ad bidding that occurs each time a mobile device opens an app or web site, captured the identification associated with the service of an ad, and then further researched additional characteristics associated with that mobile device.
Though not conducted with the scientific rigor of a public poll, the results captured voter characteristics not usually polled by campaigns. For example, according to an analysis of the results conducted by USA Today: voters expecting a newborn child tend to be Republican and had a greater concentration at Senator Marco Rubio’s caucus sites; voters in locations with strong support for Donald Trump had a penchant for outdoor activities and home improvement; and tech-industry workers and enthusiasts were more concentrated in Senator Bernie Sanders’ caucus sites than those of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
In an interview with news site Fusion, a representative from Dstillery explained, “One thing that isn’t in the data is personal identifiable information. The data and system are completely anonymous. We have no idea, for example, what your name is. All we see are behaviors and everything we do is based on analyzing those behaviors writ-large.”
So, while identifying individual voters and their preferences through this method of data collection might not be a present concern, the prospect of campaigns themselves utilizing these tactics might subject Iowans to an even greater saturation of political advertising in 2020, on top of the astounding $70 million spent in 2016. And, with many Iowans lamenting the constant barrage of TV and radio ads, campaigns might be eager to attempt this new, more subtle approach