Despite the scenes in the televised spy-thriller series Homeland, where agents Carrie Mathison and director Saul Berenson talk covertly by cellphone, former CIA director Gen. Michael Hayden says he never used one during the three years he headed up the U.S. security agency.
“The most unbelievable part of Homeland is the cellphones. No, no way,” Mr. Hayden said in an interview.
Communications are done “in person, or through secure hardened networks,” he said.
And now that he is using a smartphone after leaving public life, it isn’t a BlackBerry — long favoured by many business and government users for its security services.
“I have an iPhone… I like the features,” said Mr. Hayden, who also served as NSA director from 1999-2005.
BlackBerry’s core customer base has been business and government users, who turned to the smartphone for its physical keyboard and security features.
But the Waterloo, Ont.-based company has been losing market share to Apple and Android devices. It’s expected to have 0.8% of the market it pioneered this year, and just 0.3% by 2018, according to IDC.
Mr. Hayden said the BlackBerry has “baked in a heightened level of security from the beginning” and has an “inherent advantage” over other devices, but: “I bought an iPhone. What more can I say?”
The four-star general is now retired, but continues to work on security issues as a principal at security consultancy Chertoff Group.
He is also a regular commentator on national security issues, often rebuking former NSA contractor Edward Snowden for leaking documents that detail the inner workings of the surveillance system Mr. Hayden helped create.
But opting to use a smartphone exposes Mr. Hayden to another kind of surveillance: the culling of personal location data for marketing purposes. The signals emitted by Wi-fi and Bluetooth-enabled smartphones can be detected and tracked by sensors to develop profiles and better target customers.
It’s a practice that he calls a “far more invasive” and “broad” collection of data than what Canadian and U.S. authorities are allowed to do.
Mr. Hayden describes an instance when he was checking his iPhone while sitting in the back of a taxi in Washington, D.C., when a coupon was emailed to him for a restaurant.
“I look through the windshield of the car, and I can see the restaurant that they’re advertising to me,” Mr. Hayden said.
Currently, marketers using these sensors in stores and other public areas don’t need consent to capture this anonymous data, but Mr. Hayden says this should change.
“We have not yet had the adult conversation as to what we find acceptable for the convenience and the empowerment that it gives, at the expense of what level of privacy,” he said.
https://business.financialpost.com/2014/05/31/even-former-nsa-chief-michael-hayden-doesnt-use-a-blackberry/?__lsa=3647-7922