Use of Mobile Phone and Credit Card Data

In class on Wednesday we had a lengthy discussion about some of the side effects of making mobile phone and credit card data available. We discussed who should be allowed to have access to mobile phone tracking data and when they should be allowed to use it. We also discussed how credit card data can be used and who should have access to that. It was clear during the discussion that many students had different views on the topics and there was some debate. Two issues in particular that garnered a lot of interest were insurance companies using walking data from mobile phones to adjust life insurance rates and credit score ratings being effected by the use of a credit card at marriage counseling. Most of the class discussion on the issues was centered around whether using the data to adjust rates and prices was ethical. While it is a valid debate, one other aspect I thought of was the accuracy of the data.

Through my personal experiences I have found that in a lot cases someone might have a phone or a credit card under the name of someone else. For example, my phone is under the name of my mother. Some of my friends have credit cards in the names of their parents, grandparents, or uncle or aunts. If companies were looking at mobile phone data or credit card data in order to do more research into the personal lives of one of the adults with the name on the plan of a teenager, the conclusions reached about the adult would be erroneous. There are also many other circumstances that could cause mobile phone data to be misrepresentative of the real situation at hand. For this reason, more than privacy issues, I think insurance companies, banks, and other companies should not use mobile phone and credit card data to make inferences on clients.