An investigation by EFF reveals how Fog Data Science LLC sold geo-location data of “hundreds of millions of unsuspecting Americans'' to the local police. This exchange of data often takes place without a warrant and needless to say, it’s taken without the informed consent of people. Why it matters: This is not the first time that a company is helping police with surveillance, but Fog Data Science is doing in a way that's easy to replicate, and on a very large scale. It claims to have billions of data points on American people. In India, the right to privacy has been declared a fundamental right but it is blatantly ignored in surveillance measures undertaken by the government or the police. The case of Fog Science serves as a major examples of how companies exploit consumers data for commercial purposes. What is Fog Science? Fog Data Science is a company that purchases and sells geo-location data of people. They also provide law enforcement with a software that helps them analyse and store these data points. How Fog Science works The basic premise of Fog Science is very simple. They purchase raw geo location data from data brokers, who in turn get this data from various apps like food apps, shopping apps, etc. These apps that we use “continuously broadcast geolocation and time-stamped data through WiFi, Bluetooth and Cell Towers”, EFF's article states. Once all the data is collected, they put it together in a software dedicated to the police so that…
