What Happens When Your Smartphone Starts Monitoring Your Moods?

A smartphone that recognizes your mood just might be on the horizon. A recent San Diego Union Tribune article “Can smartphones get attuned to your moods?” discusses current research that would structure your music playlists based on your mood. The method determines your mood by analyzing data from sensors in the smartphone - the accelerometer, the GPS device and the microphone. Researchers are also considering getting data from monitoring keywords in the emails you send and the content of the websites you visit.

The article briefly quotes me on the privacy issues such monitoring would raise – of which there are several.

Is It Legal for Your Smartphone Provider to Collect This Information?

At the moment, internet and digital privacy is mostly self-regulated. Hence, there’s no federal law stopping the people behind your smartphone from monitoring the websites you visit and your location. However, there are lots of government officials and advocacy groups who would be happier if providers got consumer permission for such monitoring. Monitoring a person’s emails or phone calls without their permission is another matter and would  likely violate wiretapping laws, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, the Stored Communications Act, and other state and federal laws.

Should Consumers Grant Permission for Smartphones to Monitor Their Moods?

Maybe. There are pluses and minuses to allowing your digital equipment to have sufficient information about you to make accurate recommendations for the music, books, products, travel plans, job opportunities, etc. that may interest you. From a privacy perspective, the minus of having too much personal information about you available in the digital world is that the information may be used in ways you don’t anticipate. When information is collected about consumers, there is always someone who wants access to that information. Whether or not the people/institutions can legally access that information depends on who they are and why they want the information.