Cell-phone behavior data alone predicted location and activity with 90 percent accuracy.

Evidence

Pentland and Eagle began with 100 MIT students and faculty centered at the Media Lab, equipping them with 100 Nokia phones preloaded with special software in a project that would become the basis of Eagle’s doctoral dissertation. The two researchers exposed the revelatory power of continuously harvested behavioral data, which they validated with survey information collected directly from each participant. Their analyses produced detailed portraits of individual and group life: the “social system,” as the authors called it. They were able to specify regular temporal and spatial patterns of location, activity, and communication-use patterns, which together enabled predictions of up to 90 percent accuracy regarding where someone was likely to be and what that person was likely to be doing within the hour, as well as highly accurate predictions about an individual’s colleagues, casual friends, and close relationships. The team identified patterns of communication and interaction within work groups, as well as the broad “organizational rhythms and network dynamics” of the Media Lab. (Eagle became CEO of Jana, a mobile advertising company that offers free internet to emerging markets in exchange for behavioral surplus.) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1342

Categorization

• QUESTION: The 90 percent prediction figure is striking — worth chasing how the accuracy was measured and validated against the survey data.
• SHARE: The detail that Eagle later became CEO of Jana, trading free internet for behavioral surplus in emerging markets, is a sharp anecdote for someone interested in surveillance capitalism’s global footprint.
• SEED: The 90-percent prediction line could anchor an essay on how mundane sensing data quietly became predictive power over individual lives.
• XREF: connects to: Location and phone-sensor data reveal individuals and moods even when anonymized — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 766; Surveillance can predict civilian behavior from recurring spatial and social patterns

Broader Connections

• Location and phone-sensor data reveal individuals and moods even when anonymized #corroborates (0.85) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 766
• Surveillance can predict civilian behavior from recurring spatial and social patterns #corroborates (0.80)