Metadata
- •
What it is
- •
Data about a communication rather than its content — who you're talking to, how often, when, and for how long — as opposed to what was actually said.
- •
- •
Why it mattesr
- •
Metadata protection is rare, even in services that otherwise take content privacy seriously (via E2EE). But metadata alone can reveal deeply sensitive things about someone's life without anyone ever reading a single message.
- •
- •
Example
- •
The NSA's bulk phone records program didn't need to listen to calls to be invasive — call metadata alone (who called whom, when, how long) could reveal whether someone had called a pastor, an abortion provider, an addiction counselor, or a suicide hotline.
- •
- •