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They're watching you. Yes, really

| December 14, 2018 12:00 AM

“I saw what you did, and know who you are.”

That quote comes from an incredibly terrible 1988 movie called “I Saw What You Did.”

It was actually a remake of a very good 1965 flick starring Joan Crawford.

Anyhow, in the brainless 1988 film, two teenage girls begin making prank calls and repeating that line you see up top to various strangers, then hanging up the phone.

And eventually …

No, if I wade into any more of the plot, honestly, I’m liable to wind up in therapy.

But I don’t give a hoot about that movie.

I just wanted you to read that first line and think about it a second, because …

It’s happening to you, pretty much all of you, right now.

Nobody’s phoning, sadly, since this isn’t a prank.

Yet hundreds (perhaps thousands) of companies not only know who you are, but where you are — every minute of the day.

Naturally, when you string that information together, they also know most of what you did.

Computers can connect the dots and map out your day.

Even your life.

THE ODD thing is that, for years now, we’ve worried about the government spying on us.

Big Brother and all that.

Drones hovering everywhere.

That’s nothing compared to what private companies know about us, simply because they can track our phones every second of every day.

We allow it.

And this being a capitalist country where everyone hopes to make a buck, these companies that track us so relentlessly then naturally sell that information to another whole raft of businesses.

You think I’m exaggerating?

The New York Times just published a long, investigative piece that’s titled:

“Your Apps Know Where You Were Last Night, and They’re Not Keeping It Secret.”

The story begins: “Every moment of every day, mobile phone apps collect detailed location data. They send the data from phones going to schools, hospitals, shops and homes.

“And it’s for sale.”

Here’s some material from the Times story …

“More than 1,000 popular apps contain location-sharing code from such companies, according to 2018 data from MightySignal, a mobile analysis firm.

“Google’s Android system was found to have about 1,200 apps with such code, compared with about 200 on Apple’s iOS.”

YOU LOOK at Weather.com?

I do.

Most of us have some weather app on our phones.

Well, it turns out they are furious harvesters of our information — where we are and when, etc.

Then it’s sold.

Of course.

Apps say you can opt out of location mapping, but finding the place to do it is almost impossible unless you work in the security industry.

You might ask: Why doesn’t the government do something about this? Can’t they protect us?

The laughable answer is no.

CEOs from Facebook and Google have been summoned to Congressional inquiries on various subjects, and the result has been a farce.

Legislators are so tech-ignorant that these Q-and-A sessions could be turned into a sitcom.

At a House Judiciary Committee hearing on Tuesday, Google CEO Sundar Pichai was asked by Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, why his 7-year-old granddaughter saw a photo of the congressman with inappropriate language while playing a game on her iPhone.

Pichai managed to keep a straight face and answered, “Congressman, iPhone is made by a different company.”

KING THEN got in deeper and, red-faced, he said: “Maybe it was an Android.”

This was a Congressional hearing, involving U.S. representatives who, theoretically at least, have received serious briefings on the subject matter.

Yet Steve King didn’t have a clue what Google does for a living.

So just run with this …

Tech companies can and do track us every second. They make billions from knowing us so intimately.

Live with it.

Or head for a secluded valley somewhere and get off the grid entirely.

Me?

I just assume everyone from here to Indonesia, including a global network of cyber crooks, has all my information.

They all know I ate reheated pizza last night and I’m currently reading “The Redbreast,” by Jo Nesbo.

But hey, I’m poor.

So why worry about it?

•••

Steve Cameron is a columnist for The Press who wants to say hi to that webmaster in Macedonia who just got in touch out of the blue to sell images and portraits. Hey there, pal, it’s even colder in Skopje than Kootenai County, and I’m all warm indoors — but you probably already knew that.

A Brand New Day appears from Wednesday through Saturday each week.

Steve’s column on Gonzaga basketball runs on Tuesday.

Email: scameron@cdapress.com

Facebook: BrandNewDayCDAPress

Twitter: @BrandNewDayCDA