Privacy is a shared concern. We all want our lives to be private and not at arm’s reach of everyone and especially not governments. Privacy concerns were amplified when the NSA revelations came in.

But a recent study showed that your phone’s metadata can be used to construct your life and is basically a breach to your privacy. Even if you may use multiple VPNs with the highest encryption possible, if anyone gets a hand on your phone’s metadata, the person can accurately reconstruct your life.

The study was conducted by Jonathan Mayer and Patrick Mutchler with data from 546 volunteers. Using easily available data such as phone call duration and destination, Facebook profiles, web history, Maps history, etc the Stanford University researcher were able to determine many details about the patient’s life such as locations they went, who they call, firearms they posess, etc.

The information revealed by the metadata was so detailed that the researchers actually knew mundane details and were able to recognize a cannabis cultivator, multiple sclerosis sufferer, etc from the volunteers.

Also, if you went to a firearm store or just ordered it by calling for one (Who does that?), your phone’s GPS (if on) can see where you went and if you call, even better, your exact destination will be known.

When the revelations happened and the public lashed out against invasion of privacy, the NSA countered by saying that it only monitored metadata of calls, messages, etc but not their content. The public thought “Oh, just metadata. So nothing exposed”, the backlash quietened down a bit and everything was back to normal.

Little did they know that metadata can be used to procure much information about you, enough to arrest you if you did something wrong.

It has been said for years that metadata can reveal confidential/secret information but never had anyone thought that it would be to such a scale

The level of detail of the information revealed by metadata is quite alarming and we must take the necessary precautions to keep our data safe and away from prying eyes. “For your eyes only”