Re: Cellphone / GPS tracking services ... big brother, or mom, or wife ... is watching

From: Cockpit Colin (spam_at_nospam.com)
Date: 12/27/04 

Date: Tue, 28 Dec 2004 12:28:35 +1300

As with any technology, it can be used or abused.

I'm sure any parent who has ever has one of their children "turn up missing"
for a time would give their right arm to know where to start looking. As
someone who has lost their sister to an idiot driver I can tell you that if
technology could inform me that my daughter was in a potentially dangerous
situation, I'd sure like to have it.

Ahh yes - the privacy issue. Can't speak for others, but personally I'd have
no problem with family or staff knowing that the technology was reporting
back on them - I'd be just as happy to have it report back on me. As for
reporting back to "Big Brother", well that's another story.

"Alan Browne" <alan.browne@FreeLunchVideotron.ca> wrote in message
news:OiYzd.21655$nc3.888168@wagner.videotron.net...
>
> An article in today's LA Times
> ==============================
>
> Go Ahead, Just Try to Disappear
> # Global positioning technology on mobile phones and other devices can
track
> errant workers, teens or even pets. The price is privacy.
>
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-gps27dec27,0,163095.story?coll=la-home-headlines
>
> By David Colker, Times Staff Writer
>
> As her daughter enjoyed a weekend road trip, Donna Butler sat back home
120
> miles away at her personal computer and watched a blue dot tick slowly
across
> the screen.
>
> But not slowly enough.
>
> "They were going 85 on the interstate where the speed limit is 70," said
Butler,
> who interrupted 17-year-old Danielle's getaway to let her know, " 'I will
> personally come up there and drive you home.' "
>
> It would have been easy to find her. Whenever Danielle is away from her
central
> Florida home, her mobile phone uses a global positioning system to
transmit her
> precise location, which her mother can track online.
>
> Developed originally as a military tool, GPS is used widely by drivers,
hikers
> and boaters to figure out where they are. A new generation of relatively
cheap
> GPS-equipped devices can tell others too — allowing people for the first
time to
> keep constant tabs on their rebellious teens, wandering spouses or loafing
> employees.
>
> That prospect comforts mothers like Butler, but it concerns some who see
ever
> more powerful and invasive technology eroding a sense of personal privacy.
>
> "If your supermarket offers you the chance to take a few cents off a loaf
of
> bread in exchange for tracking every purchase you make with one of their
cards,
> you do it," said Jonathan Zittrain, co-founder of the Berkman Center for
> Internet and Society at Harvard Law School.
>
> "TiVo quietly makes note of your TV viewing habits. Will we be willing to
carry
> a GPS locator so we can order a pizza with the push of a button and know
it's on
> its way right to us?"
>
> Although GPS was added to cellphones so that 911 emergency calls could be
> tracked, 15 million Nextel Communications Inc. subscribers can now buy the
> locator service for personal or business use. Next year the approximately
23
> million Sprint Corp. wireless users will be able to sign up. It costs
about $15
> a month to turn on the service.
>
> Among the first to sign up was James Kinney, to keep track of workers at
his
> Kinney Construction Inc. in Orange. His employees are required to carry
the
> phones during the workday.
>
> Shortly after handing out the phones last year, office manager Kristy
Collins
> was demonstrating the system for a supervisor.
>
> "We looked at the map on the computer that showed all the little dots
where a
> crew was working a job," Collins said. "But one dot was way over in
another
> spot. The guy was at home instead of on the job."
>
> Management professor Lucas Introna, who specializes in workplace
surveillance
> issues, said GPS tracking provided just enough information to breed
discontent.
>
> "In an office or a factory situation, a manager who might walk by has
access to
> a whole range of situational information," said Introna, who teaches at
> Lancaster University in Britain. "But when a worker far away knows that
every
> move they make is monitored by someone — without information about just
what
> they are doing — it takes on a punitive sense."
>
> Kinney didn't disagree. "The guys hate it," he conceded, even though the
worker
> caught at home was able to show that he had gone to pick up materials
needed for
> the job.
>
> GPS, which uses a network of orbiting satellites to fix precise locations
on
> Earth, was developed for the military. But as soon as the first satellite
in the
> system was turned on in 1978, academics were testing its capabilities. By
the
> early 1980s surveyors were using GPS in their work.
>
> GPS has proved to be one of the most popular consumer uses of space
technology.
> So far this year, nearly 3.9 million new cars came with factory-installed
GPS
> navigation systems, according to research company CMS Worldwide. In 2008,
that
> number is forecast to reach 6.5 million.
>
> Hand-held GPS units for hikers, bicyclists and runners have steadily
fallen in
> price and are now available for about $100.
>
> Satellite tracking for the non-military market got its first big boost in
1988
> when then-fledgling Qualcomm Inc. of San Diego introduced a system that
allowed
> fleet managers to spot where their vehicles were anywhere in the country.
>
> Consumer GPS tracking gear was soon to follow, popping up in shops and
> eventually on websites that often had "spy" as part of their names.
>
> "I would say that 60% of my sales are to women who say, 'I think my
husband is
> cheating on me,' " said Greg Shields of Cincinnati, who operates the
Spygear
> Store on the Web and sells a $500 unit designed to be magnetically
attached to
> the bottom of a vehicle. "The rest are men who want to track employees."
>
> The unit is removed after several days and plugged into a personal
computer to
> produce a map that can be zoomed down to the street level to show not only
where
> the vehicle has been but also its speed and all starts and stops. Shields
also
> sells a $1,200 device that sends the signals back to a personal computer
for
> real-time tracking.
>
> Customers, including a woman in Phoenix who recently bought a device from
him,
> have been satisfied with the operation of the units if not the results.
>
> Shields said the woman told him, "My husband was saying he was working
late and
> it turned out he was going to the Holiday Inn. Now he's living at the
Holiday Inn."
>
> In 2002, Wherify Wireless Inc. of Redwood Shores, Calif., debuted a GPS
wrist
> device — which looked like a gaudy digital watch — for tracking children.
The
> company declined to say how many it had sold, but one was bought by
Zittrain.
>
> "My dog had gotten lost a couple times," he said. "I put it on her
collar."
>
> Cellphones entered the picture in 2001, when the Federal Communications
> Commission ordered mobile telephone carriers to add technology to handsets
that
> pinpoint their location. The idea was to make it easier to track 911
emergency
> calls, which increasingly come from cellphones.
>
> Some carriers adopted technology that used signals from cellphone towers
to
> determine location. Others, including national carriers Verizon Wireless,
Sprint
> and Nextel, went with GPS.
>
> Although Nextel is the only national carrier to offer GPS services, all
new
> phones sold by these carriers are GPS- equipped. By the end of 2005,
companies
> that chose GPS are supposed to have converted at least 95% of their
subscribers
> to the phones, although some carriers have indicated they will ask the FCC
for
> an extension.
>
> Even without the government regulations, GPS probably would have made its
way
> into cellphone handsets eventually, said James Dempsey, executive director
of
> the Center for Democracy and Technology in Washington.
>
> "The commercial value of location services is so valuable, we would
probably
> still be seeing a proliferation of them anyway," Dempsey said. In addition
to
> locator services, Nextel offers a function that gives driving directions.
A
> Sprint spokeswoman suggested that one day users could buy a movie ticket
and
> then automatically get directions to the theater.
>
> Joe Betar just wanted to know where his 13-year-old daughter was.
>
> The owner of a Utah car dealership had already raised two teenagers.
"There were
> numerous nights when they were not home when they were supposed to be," he
said.
> "We would lie awake worrying about them. I ended up driving around,
looking for
> them."
>
> So when his daughter wanted a cellphone, Betar picked one out — with a
> subscription for GPS tracking. He didn't tell her about it.
>
> "If she knew, she might be tempted to just leave it in some location,"
Betar said.
>
> For Mark Frankel of the American Assn. for the Advancement of Science in
> Washington, that crosses a line. "If a parent gives a teenager one of
these
> phones and tells them, 'It has the ability to track you,' it can carry the
> message 'We are concerned about your safety,' " said Frankel, who is
director of
> the group's Scientific Freedom, Responsibility and Law Program.
>
> "But it troubles me that someone would be tracked without their knowledge,
> outside of a criminal situation. When the child finds out about it, and
there's
> a good chance they will, it's a betrayal. It carries the message 'I have
no
> trust in you.' "
>
> Frankel said that part of being a teenager "is to develop an independent
> personality. And part of that is privacy."
>
> Tom Pratt has no such qualms. He told his two children about the GPS units
in
> their mobile phones. But he said being a kid today is far more dangerous
than
> when he grew up on Long Island in New York.
>
> "Back when I was a kid, on a Saturday you left home when the sun came up
and
> then came back home when it was time for dinner," he said. Now he worries
about
> his 12- and 13-year-olds, and he pitched the GPS unit to them as a way to
give
> them more freedom.
>
> "We told our son, 'You don't have to call home every hour anymore,' "
Pratt said.
>
> Danielle Butler, whose road trip was interrupted with the warning about
> speeding, is practically an adult. But she said she hardly thinks about
the
> phone that allows her to be tracked. "I don't mind," she said. "I have
nothing
> to hide."
>
> ###