1. Age and Gender

Many apps ask you to sign in or share your personal details from sites like Facebook, with many of us forgetting how much data this social channel actually knows about us. Within a matter of seconds your name, age and gender will be shared, amongst many other details, says Gavin Wheeldon, CEO of Purple.

2. Where you are within a venue

According to GSMA Intelligence there are 7.7 billion mobile connections around the world, so with most of us carrying at least one smartphone or device on our person it’s no surprise that brands are using the GPS signals to monitor consumer behaviour and movement within their venues.

3. What locations you’ve recently visited

 Mobile applications often ask for permission to access your personal photos and each image will pinpoint the exact location that you took it, meaning brands can see exactly where you’ve been and even who with.

4. Personality traits

Your Facebook likes allow brands and researchers to extrapolate what interests you have and even some of your more intimate details such as your political stance, sexual orientation, relationship status, religious views and hobbies.

5. What you like to read, watch and buy

Brands like Amazon and Netflix are capturing data about what summaries you’re reading, how long you spend surfing titles, what you ultimately watch, and for how long. By gaining access to this data they can keep you engaged and recommend books, films and series suited to your behavioural data.

6. How intelligent you are

Researchers and brands have started to track the different things that individuals ‘like’ on Facebook to determine how intelligent you are. 

7. What you’re browsing 

Every online search engine that you use knows what you’ve searched for and even if you’re browsing in private mode your ISP knows every website you’ve ever visited. That’s a whole lot of data.

8. Contacts

If someone asked you in the street if they could gain access to the mobile numbers of your nearest and dearest from your mobile device you’d most likely say no. However, many of us willingly share our contacts when agreeing the terms and conditions of many mobile applications.

9. What you like to buy

Regardless of whether it is a physical store or an online shop, brands are collecting data about all of their shoppers. How many times have you looked at a pair of shoes on a website to coincidentally see an advert for them on social media? Or have you ever been near a coffee shop, craving your favourite beverage to then be sent a coupon to your phone. It’s no coincidence, it’s big data.

10. How fast you travel

Whether you’re a fitness fanatic or not, big data knows exactly how fast we travel and approximately how many calories we burn. From the inbuilt health app on our iPhone’s, to your Fitbit monitor, brands know how much you move and how fast.

The author of this blog is Gavin Wheeldon, CEO of Purple

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