You might think that your text message and phone calls have no bearing on your financial future, but you could be wrong. Some companies are using their customers鈥� smartphone habits to decide whether or not they should be granted a loan, according to a .
The report looked at the way tech-savvy loan companies work in India and Kenya, finding that they鈥檙e turning to increasingly intrusive sources of information to make decisions about their customers.
鈥淒ecisions that seem irrelevant, such as how you have arranged your phone book, how often you call your parents, and how many social media apps you have, are now factors to determine someone鈥檚 trustworthiness and credit score,鈥� says Tom Fisher, who wrote the report.
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One example is an app called Tala. Headquartered in California, Tala is used to give small loans of up to $500 to people in Kenya and the Phillippines. People give the app permission to access their contacts, text messages, and call logs, as well as their GPS data which shows where they鈥檝e been. What do you get in exchange for giving Tala all that personal data? Potentially a loan in as little as three minutes.
Global surveillance
If someone is rejected by Tala for a loan they are encouraged to keep the app and continue to share information with the company. Tala then continue to analyse their smartphone habits to get an idea of how healthy the person鈥檚 financial situation is, and will offer a loan if the situation changes.
鈥淵es, Big Brother is watching you, but not standing at your door with a stick,鈥� says Daniel Szlapack at Branch, another company that uses smartphone data to determine if someone gets a loan.
Maria Frabboni, who researches intellectual property at the University of Sussex, says the report raises the issues of how technology interferes with an individual鈥檚 notion of personal identity.鈥淭he intersection between technology and provision of financial services could lead to situations that are more akin to surveillance,鈥� she says.
While the Privacy International report highlights this problem in developing countries, it could happen almost anywhere. 鈥淚n the UK or US, people may say they care about their privacy but in practice they happily go along with global surveillance, whether from industry or government,鈥� says Frank Stajano at the University of Cambridge.
