Text 24, 64 rader
Skriven 2004-08-30 04:41:39 av Steve Asher (3:800/432.0)
Ärende: Tracking Privacy
========================
Editorial: Tracking privacy

By Larry Garfield

Location tracking devices are becoming more and more prevalent, from
tracking kids to tracking the elderly. But, Larry Garfield asks, at
what cost to privacy?

With the release of several new phones of late targeted at specific
users with automatic always-on or on-demand location tracking, the
question of personal privacy once again comes to the forefront. Do 
we really want the phone company, or the government, to be able to
determine where we (or our mobile phones) are at any given time? Life
would be a lot easier if the answer to that question was simple.

There certainly are obvious advantages to being able to pinpoint someone
on-demand, including yourself. Navigation software is based on knowing 
your own location with a high degree of accuracy.

(snip)

What about being tracked by another party, however? "Finding lost
children" is the standard knee-jerk justification brought out, and
it's hard to dismiss. Children have an innate skill for finding the
most inopportune times and places to get lost, even without questions
of kidnapping. Certainly we want to be able to track our own children's 
location on-demand, whether they're lost in a shopping mall or being 
held for ransom.

But at what cost? For that to work, there must be a network in place
to be able to track a person, either by some regularly recorded
biometric or other identifiable data (facial recognition systems in
downtown Boston, license plate cameras all over downtown London) or 
by some carried or implanted tracking device (always-on GPS, implanted
radio chip, RFID tags). All of those do a lot more than find lost
children. They give the tracker, who is not the person being tracked
nor that person's parent or guardian, an immense about of information
about where the person goes, with whom they associate, what they do,
what they buy, what their musical tastes are, what their political
opinions are. That gives the tracker immense power with a capital P,
as in Potential for abuse.

(snip)

"For the children", "to stop the terrorists", and other hot-button
justifications aside, these are genuinely important questions that
must be asked and debated from the bottom up, starting with anyone
considering buying any product that includes location or identification 
tracking be it GPS or RFID. For my part, I'll find my own restaurant 
and keep my privacy to myself, not put it in the hands of a tracking 
company or government, thank you.

(c) Copyright 1999-2004 infoSync World 

                              -=<*>=-

Full article at Raiders News Updates...
http://www.raidersnewsupdate.com/lead-story.htm


Cheers, Steve...

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