Apple Or Android? What Your Choice Of Operating System Says About You
This post previously appeared on CREST's Blog in December 2016. Your mobile phone provides all kinds of useful data about what you do, and where. But does even the choice of handset say something about you? Heather Shaw and CREST Associate David Ellis tell us more. Digital traces can provide scientists and law-enforcement agencies with a range of information about groups and individuals. In particular, smartphones can log communications (e.g., calls and messages) and behaviour from multiple internal sensors (e.g., movement and location). For example, patterns of smartphone usage can be indicative of a person’s sleep-wake activity. Location information, on the other hand, is already used to provide alibis, and can accurately predict where a person works and lives. In a very short space of time, the smartphone has become a mini version of ourselves. This is probably why people become increasingly anxious if someone else attempts to use their smartphone! We found that A...