Exploring who your mobile phone talks to behind your back at Brighton Digital Festival.

68 Middle Street, Brighton, Saturday, September 19

“PRE-SMART phones the big problem for an industry built on personal data was when someone switched off their laptop or computer those companies lost them.

“The great thing about smartphones is they are always on – often for 24 hours a day. And all the time they are on they are broadcasting – like a pipe gushing information.”

Channel Four technology journalist Geoff White has long been fascinated by the data mobile phones transmit, and who receives it.

And in this new hour-long show he has teamed up with Glenn Wilkinson, the security researcher for SensePost, to hack the mobile phones of the audience and show them on their own devices.

“Ever since I started covering technology I’ve been interested in where the data goes,” says White. “We have got an industry built on data. If a company doesn’t actually sell products to make money their whole company is based on data and information and what they are able to do with it.

“I wanted to know where the data goes, who gets it and what they do with it. I thought it would be easy to find out, but when I started asking questions I got some weird answers.

“Companies would say: ‘Even we don’t know what happens’ or that it was technically complicated. It sounded like they were trying to put me off.”

To investigate White created a virtual identity, Rebecca Taylor, and tracked where her data went. But it wasn’t a good substitute for a real person – so last year, when White went to speak at Latitude Festival, he hacked his own mobile phone live onstage to show the data coming on and off it.

“People were really fascinated and asked if I could do it for their phone,” he says. “I realised we could do this as a stage show.”

The show not only shows the traffic of date coming on and off the phone, but also shows on a world map where it is going to – and to whom.

“On that list are names you recognise like Facebook and Google,” says White. “But there are a whole bunch of companies that you have never heard of, but you are sending information to them.”

He says it is all part of a global campaign by technology and tracking companies to fingerprint every mobile phone on the planet.

“It’s only worth knowing data about people if you can lock it onto one individual person,” he says. “It’s all anonymised, but if they have a unique fingerprint for your phone, know where you are in the world and know what you look like they don’t care about your name!

“It’s like someone listening to every phone call and opening every letter you receive, but saying they will cross out your name. I don’t think a lot of people will be happy with that.”

The plus side of this data capture is that, for example, every Google search is perfectly suited to the user.

But the problem is that it is all one-way – and most people have no idea it is happening.

“We are becoming increasingly reliant on these services,” he says. “We need to increase our knowledge and be less ignorant.”

One big area is the dreaded terms and conditions when signing up to websites and apps.

“If the terms and conditions allow a company to do everything under the sun with data investors think it is great,” says White – giving the example of what a dating site could do with its users’ photographs.

“If you take it to the world of the future where they can computer animate people’s faces onto bodies, would you be comfortable with your face on your dating profile being used?

“If you tried to sue the company they would roll out the terms and conditions and say you signed up to it.”

By checking the privacy and data use sections of terms and conditions, users can make informed choices about the sites they sign up to – and go for those with tighter conditions.

Another easy way of avoiding sending information out to servers across the world is to simply turn off wi-fi and mobile data services when they are not being used.

“You can still get calls and texts, but the phones aren’t sending out data,” says White.

“It’s interesting – when you first get a phone the default option is to turn all these things on. You have to go in and turn them off.

“The battery often runs out because of all these things going on in the background.”

White says he now practises what he preaches, not signing up to lots of apps, and logging out of browsers when he has finished using them.

“What’s great about this show is we are effectively giving people a window into what is going on,” he says.

“It’s like a heat loss map on your house – you can see what is leaking off your phone and close it off.”

Starts 7pm, tickets £8. Visit brightondigitalfestival.co.uk/