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

From: JGS (jgs123_at_comcast^dot^net)
Date: 01/08/05 

Date: Sat, 08 Jan 2005 07:41:38 -0500

On Wed, 05 Jan 2005 09:52:33 GMT, kashe@sonic.net wrote:

>On Sun, 02 Jan 2005 14:07:39 -0500, JGS <jgs123@comcast^dot^net>
>wrote:
>
>>On Sun, 02 Jan 2005 13:25:14 -0500, Alan Browne
>><alan.browne@FreeLunchVideotron.ca> wrote:
>>
>>>JohnF wrote:
>>>
>>>> "Alan Browne" <alan.browne@FreeLunchVideotron.ca> wrote in message
>>>> news:TMBBd.21270$I81.606518@wagner.videotron.net...
>>>>
>>>>>JohnF wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>"yet another one of these threads" you say? Every time there is a change
>>>>>("progress") in the area of GPS+|cell based tracking, the issue SHOULD
>>>>>come up. It should always be questioned.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Ok. So this has been questioned to death since cell phones have been around.
>>>> What's the answer? The point being that there hasn't been a fundamental
>>>> change in cell based tracking. It's the same question over and over with the
>>>> same paranoia and the same mis-understanding that this is something new.
>>>
>>>Nextel are now in the business of selling tracking information. Their web site
>>>says it can be sold, for example, to companies to track their employees
>>>whereabouts. I can see many benefits from logistical to verification. I can
>>>see abuse too.
>>>
>>>Let's say your lovely and attractive wife works for company C as a project
>>>manager and she has to drive or travel around to several job sites, suppliers
>>>and to the customers offices. C has three employees who coordinate logistics
>>>for employees as well as monitor worker compiance. Your wife, as a fast track
>>>manager with a VP title in her near future, is not subject to hour to hour
>>>supervision. But, the company has automated tracking of all their supplied cell
>>>phones. Now let's say there is some guy at the company who gets ideas about
>>>your wife. Let's say he has access to the tracking data.
>>>
>>>I'll let you fill in the blanks.
>>>
>>>A Hollywood gorefest motion picture in the making.
>>>
>>>Cheers,
>>>Alan
>>
>>Having been in upper management for a major international engineering
>>company and for the past 12 years the owner of my own engineering company,
>>from my experience I can say I have met people in management positions that
>>would possibly abuse the data as you suggest.
>>
>>Company politics at the higher management level was the spur that got me to
>>start my own company.
>>
>>Though all of my employees have Internet access and some have company issued
>>cell phones, I am still of the old fashioned view that my people are
>>professionals and are self regulating. I'll not ever monitor Internet or
>>cell phone usage.
>>
>>It is interesting to see the trend that implies distrust of one's employees.
>>I don't like it.
>>
>>Thanks for posting the information on Nextel.
>
> I certainly applaud your trust in your employees, but, being
>in the IT industry, I know there is strong pressure brought upon
>employers, by their legal departments, to at least assert a policy
>that the company can monitor email and web browsing of employees. The
>justification is that either can be used to create a "hostile work
>environment" for which the employer could be found legally liable or
>to communicate with outsiders in a way for which trhe employer might
>become liable. So monitoring may easily be pushed into environments
>where it would otherwise be unwelcome.
>

Wow, been at a customer site for a week and this group sure is active. I'll
be spending a couple of hours just catching up :)

Without wandering way OT, I guess I have to tend to agree with you. New
opportunities for litigation seem to crop up frequently in this information
intensive age. My company specializes in automation. In many projects, we
log every single action by the machine operator. Those logs can be reviewed
by management to investigate a problem. For instance, if a line suddenly
stops and a few minutes later is restarted, just a few years ago, we would
be scratching our heads trying to figure out what caused the failure. Today,
we might look at a log and see the Entry operator had hit the E-Stop button.
I can tell you from experience that the operators don't like the fact that
we are logging their every action. They call them spy systems. I have seen
cases where operators were disciplined for doing something "stupid", but
that is relatively rare. It still happens though.

I have chosen not to monitor my employees Internet usage but that is just
out of old fashioned conservative liberalism (if there is such a thing). I
have simply taken the easy way out and published a policy of what can or
cannot be done on the company owned computers, including no unauthorized or
unlicensed software. The policy states that the Internet is to be used only
for "work related' activities yet I know a lot of personal E-Mail is sent
through the system.

I guess I draw the line at the workplace. An employer does have the right to
know (whether he exercises that right is up to him) what his employees are
doing. After all, he is paying them to perform a service. But there should
be checks and balances put into place to prevent abuse. We just have not
gotten there yet. It is still too new and legislation is sadly lagging
technology. I am afraid that the courts will adjudicate cases before
legislation is introduced thereby setting a precedent. There is nothing I
dislike more than legislating from the bench. It becomes the luck of the
draw and sometimes nothing more than the mood the judge was in that day.

Cell phone tracking or GPS tracking of a person's whereabouts when they are
not on company time is a whole new kettle of fish. There is a lot of work to
be done in legislating the laws and adjudicating cases in these areas.

For instance, at least in some states (if not all), you can not legally
record your 16 year old child's telephone conversations (though you are
still held responsible for his/her actions). You, the parent, can be
punished in a court of law for doing such a thing. Yet you can place a
logging device on the child's computer and record every key stroke, E-Mail,
or what have you. You can place a GPS on the child's car and track every
movement of the vehicle. What distinguishes the scenarios making the law as
applied so different? I personally don't know.

As I mentioned, it seems that the law is lagging technology and the gap
seems to grow on a daily basis.

Regards
JGS