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Campaigners sound alarm over hedge funds’ data use

With spending on information such as location data from phones expected to be in the billions, some fear collection could be ‘very intrusive’

Campaigners sound alarm over hedge funds’ data use
Photo: Getty Images

Privacy campaigners and watchdogs have raised concerns about hedge funds that are ramping up their use of mobile phone users’ location data, in order to track visits to shops, gyms and hospitals.

The signals produced by mobile phones are used to calculate an estimate of the device’s geographic location, or geolocation data. This is yet another kind of so-called alternative data being mined by hedge funds for investment purposes.

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