But how much information is potentially available on the average smartphone user? As an experiment, I decided to access my own data files from third parties to find out.
The results were surprisingly revealing, showing my favourite lunch locations, sporting preferences and even the methods I use to get our newborn son to sleep at night.
All companies in the EU will now give users data held on them on request, but the telecoms groups have come under particular scrutiny given how much information they hold is shared with government departments.
Even a relatively superficial trawl of the data they hold can be used to compile an accurate log of movements and communications.
A request to my mobile operator resulted in hundreds of pages of information, which would also be accessible to public sector bodies and civil servants under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 in the UK. The information included who I called, texted or emailed, as well as when and where I was when messages were received, but did not stretch to the content of these communications. The telecoms groups need to keep records for up to a year and will hand over details if requested by a government body with sufficient authority. Last year, public authorities submitted 570,135 requests for communications data.
Daily Archives: December 28, 2013
Mortgage Data Decoupled From Other Housing Metrics
The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) reported mortgage application data for the week ending December 20, and purchase applications were down 3.5% week-over-week, following last week’s 6.1% drop, the lowest level since February 2012. The index is down about 11.5% year-over-year so far.
Raymond James analyst Buck Horne expect that the disconnect between these figures and other more positive housing indicators are only likely to widen as time goes on, thanks in large part to the high prevalence of cash buyers in the market. Cash buyers are more active in the existing home market than the new home market, they write, a situation created in part by stringent underwriting standards, higher interest rates and price increases earlier this year, among other factors. Last month, 32% of existing home sales were all cash purchases.
U.S. home prices are climbing again, but at more measured rates than during the last boom. Why the housing cycle still has room to run.
It’s no secret that U.S. home prices have enjoyed a healthy rebound in 2013 after the nightmarish 33% drop over the previous five years that triggered an orgy of mortgage defaults and wealth destruction. These days, monthly home-price reports regularly show double-digit percentage jumps over the year-earlier period, whether it’s the 13.3% annual increase for September of the S&P/Case-Shiller 20-City Composite Home Price Index or the 12.2% annual rise for October logged by CoreLogic’s home-price index.
Yet, at least some observers question how much longer the home-price recovery can continue. A jump in mortgage rates along with the torrid increases in home prices have hurt transaction volume some. The market has been overly dependent on all-cash buyers such as vulture funds, which earlier this year accounted for about a third of all sales. What will happen when they have eaten their fill? Increasingly, the home-price growth will depend on conventional buyers, who must borrow from a mortgage-lending industry that is still imposing stringent lending standards on new mortgages.
William Waitzman for Barron’s
Still, after talking to various industry experts and analyzing disparate data, Barron’s thinks that home-price appreciation should continue for the next three years, albeit at a slower pace than the double-digit increases seen this year.