Did you know that Proximus sells the overview of where you (as a Proximus mobile customer) have been to, to everyone who wants to pay for it? Companies, events or communities can purchase lists of how many people have been in a certain place at what time. This is, amongst other things, to estimate how many visitors attended a certain event or to estimate how good the turnover of a summer day has been. Proximus does not offer his customers an easy, fast and clear option to suspend the sale of their data. This is obvious given that it is the amount of information to be sold that determines the accuracy and thus the value of the data packages.
If you have a mobile subscription with Proximus, you have automatically given permission to trade your ‘location and date based data’ to those who are willing to pay for it.
The location data is offered for sale as anonymised data packages via the MyAnalytics program. This sale is mainly aimed at companies, events and government institutions. This anonymised data is rather useless for private individuals.
Is there still an option to ensure that your location data is not resold by Proximus?
Yes that is possible. This can be done by simply sending an email to [email protected] together with your Proximus number. Then you receive a reply saying: “We would like to point out that Proximus does not sell individual data, but only with anonymous reports available. The activity of processing location data is regulated by specific legislation, namely the law of June 13, 2005 on electronic communications. This law, and more particularly article 123 of this law, allows the anonymization of electronic communication data (including location data) without having to provide an opt-out option. “