No privacy

Cheap and accessible GPS-based technology is offering individuals and businesses a range of new capabilities that would have been the stuff of science fiction just a few years ago. Its increasing use for surveillance-related activity however, is crying out for more public attention.

It is hard to argue against the good uses that such technology can be used for, but they also raise serious privacy concerns. The problem is that it has sold on the basis of what might be a good use.

GPS, short for global positioning system, is based on a series of satellites that ring the globe, sending out signals indicating their position. GPS receivers that are now small enough to be built into cellular phones and other tiny gadgets, compare the signals from several of these satellites to triangulate its position. If the receiver is moving, it can also calculate its direction and speed.

Commercially available and more affordable remote GPS receivers that offer battery life of about a month are now smaller than a cellular phone. Inexpensive GPS receivers, the size of a coin, that have been designed to plug into a laptop computer or inside a bicycle shaft are widely available.

For parents who want to track a young child who's out alone in the city, or a person calling for an ambulance on a GPS-equipped cellular phone, or a business seeking more operational efficiency, it is easy to see how knowing a person's precise location at any given moment would help a great deal. But are these details secure? Are you the only one who has access to your child's location?

There are also many questions that arise when people start leaving GPS trails behind wherever they go. Can the information be used to investigate your daily routines, or by others who want to track your movements without your direct permission? Is a marketing company able to purchase the data to try and discern your buying habits so they can fine-tune their sales pitches?
Experts argue that, before people are able to decide whether the benefits of GPS technology outweigh the privacy risks, they need to be sure about who has access to the information and how it might be used.

The most potentially dangerous thing for privacy in this, in terms of consumers and ordinary people, is not so much that they'll know where you are at a given point, but that there's more and more personal information out there about you, in obscure computer servers, where it's not clear what the laws are or who owns the information, how it is being used and where it's going.
Decisions about privacy trade-offs are also affected by a person's own definition of what should be private. Living in a country where it is considered normal for citizens to be expected to carry a personal identity card, we are accustomed to compare the cost of personal liberty against national security. There are countries where citizens would rebel against such 'attacks on personal liberties'. Age also seems to be a determining factor in the type of privacy concerns. Those of us who grew up taking mass media and real-time global communication for granted, seem to be more oblivious to privacy considerations.

There's still a lot of the attitude out there that 'I have nothing to hide, so what's the problem? What are they going to find out they can't find out anyway?' The tell-all online diaries such as blogs and virtual communities with public message boards often attest to the decreasing value we place on our privacy. We are willing to share a lot more with strangers than the generations that preceded us. It is amazing on one hand. Yet we need to consider the implications of becoming a generation that is simply accustomed to being monitored and having our movements regularly kept track of.

The debate need to be balanced on the hinges of factors such as, is this something that can be demonstrably shown to improve national security, improve the quality of life and is it being used as an intimidation factor by powers that be? Write in with your ideas and thoughts to technopage@gmail.com