Are devices that monitor a user's geographic location using global positioning system and other technologies safe?
Yes, if I have an accident emergency services can find me
26% (51 votes)
No, because knowing my approximate home and work locations can identify me uniquely
38% (74 votes)
Maybe, but I like finding restaurants, ATMs and other services I can use with GPS, so I don’t care
14% (27 votes)
I haven’t thought about it
16% (32 votes)
Other
6% (12 votes)
Total votes: 196
Are GPS devices safe?
A new study shows that data collected from GPS-enabled devices is not as anonymous as we think. Data from the U.S. Census was analyzed and shows that for the average person, knowing their approximate home and work locations identifies them uniquely. You can read about it here.
Devices that can track the movement of your pet can be useful when Fido digs out from under the fence, but a 2003 paper on Geoslavery paints a scary picture of ways to enslave laborers and extract a financial return using these devices. For example, child slaves being forced to beg or steal on specified streets for specified hours or sex slaves confined to brothels or street corners.
However, many location based services (LBS) are useful and fun. If you are visiting a new city, you can find restaurants and get maps for interesting walking tours. If you are passing by an ice cream store, a digital coupon for a free cone may be texted to your phone, or you can play global hide-and-seek games like Geocaching. LBS are getting so popular that Wired magazine had an article about making the most of your GPS and meeting people at the same time in their February issue.
Re: Are GPS devices safe?
Why worry about GPS tracking devices when most of us already carry a mobile phone everywhere we go...? Besides, unlike phones, most GPS systems don't broadcast your location anywhere and thus don't have privacy issues. The "Maybe" option on the poll suggests that using any GPS navigation system could reveal my location, which simply isn't true.
Tracking via GPS
While you are correct that STAND-ALONE GPS devices can not track you, there are also the GPS in your cellphone and car (On*Star for example) which can send your location on demand (not just when you call 911). The On*Star control center can send a signal to your car to report its current location or go into tracking mode where it sends constant location data (as has been used on CSI and NCIS for example). Also Cellphones that are made for kids can be set to do the same (either display its location when pinged by the parent via a Web Site, report constant tracking, or report if the child is not located where they should be [ie: Travels out of the restricted locations that they are authorized to be in]).
Sincere Advise
By (the time). Verily, man is in loss, Except those who believe and do righteous good deeds, and recommend one another to the truth, and recommend one another to patience. Surat Al-'Asr(The Time) 103:1-3
GPS Abuse
The rights of the individual should be respected, which they are not in the case of GPS information. I would like the right to accept or decline whether to be traced or tracked. So many things in our society our done without our permission that could have unforeseen consequences. Our trust in authorities and the mama state is becoming childlike, so as such we are easily abused. In the State of Wisconsin we have a new law whereby a person can have a GPS tracking devise attached to his vehicle without a warrant being issued. That is abuse.
I agree. I have no problem
I agree. I have no problem with GPS tracking (broadcasting my location) as long as I have control over it. As long as I know when I am broadcasting or notified when a broadcast is requested where I've declined to allow it, being given the option to accept or decline is acceptable.
Everyone should have the right to say Yes, Maybe (prompt for permission) and most importantly, No.
RE: GPS Abuse...most noteably, in Wisconsin.
I readily admit that I am, for the most part, pretty darn ignorant to issues such as this one. Had I not been talked into purchasing my iPhone--which asks me if it is OK to find and use my location for this or that--I wouldn't have a clue how easily our precise location can be found by a very scary and anonymous Anybody. The thought of this brings to mind criminal actions committed against my person...criminal acts such as stalking, peeping, and the horrors that seem to follow. Never would I have thought that these crimes--the stalking and the peeping only--would be legalized, anywhere! But, if I understand this correctly, residents of Wisconsin could potentially have a GPS device attached to their cars by law enforcement officials (I hope this doesn't extend beyond those sworn to protect and serve) and have absolutely zero knowledge of the fact that the state has access to a log of where their vehicles were at any given second of any given day.
Just watch a homicide-investigation reality show such as the First 48 on A&E, and it is plenty obvious that state officials have a vast array of tricks up their sleeves with which they can place a suspect at the scene of a crime--tricks that are not as personally invasive as "tapping" one's car w/ a GPS tracker; tricks that still require an old-fashioned, legally signed warrant, as they very well should. Shame on Wisconsin law-makers! Abuse is too-light a word for such an invasion of privacy!
George Orwellian World Is Here!
Well, it may have been predicted years ago but he was apparently all-knowing in his appraisal of the world to come. The old saying "God is watching you!" is true no matter what, it just depends on who thinks they are omnipotent enough to act Godly in today's world and keep track or tabs on everyone who has been deemed worthy enough to "be priviledged to own one or more of these type devices to live and survive by." My take is that in the world of Free Will of believers or unbelievers of God, Christ, whatever, Everyone good can go bad and likewise. There's good and evil in all of us, the difference is those with a conscience and those who just don't give a rat's ass and commit crime anyway w/o regard for fellow man, woman, child or beast.
cc: file!
Mrs. Barbara Plunkett Turner
Chesterfield, VA
Out of the Blue
That's some freaky stuff. I never thought there could be something like GPS abuse. Well, the more you know the more you can protect yourself from others that try to hurt you.
catch 22
if your in an accident you want someone to find you i drive a truck if you are in the middle of the mountains its good . in every day life its 1984
Live example:
I don't know how likely that is. How would you control them? Display false information? I kind of breezed through the article, but from what I gathered, they are mentioning disinformation. Well, I have a live example that does not seem to fit in with this. My dad has a GPS system. He often times sees better routes to the destination and ignores the computers directions. If there were straight fallacies inherent in the system, he would take full notice and sell the thing or at least put it in storage. He's a bit of a blind patriot, but he's not so daft as to not know when his own street has been messed with on the GPS screen. I guess you can track the person, but without brute force intimidation or sneaky monetary/legal manipulation [like the whole post 2000 mortgage deal], there's no way to enslave people. There's only two ways and they both lead up to intimidation anyway [a little while back on the news a woman got dragged out of her house all because a bank made an error (I forget where I saw that, maybe associated press, so I don't have a source)].
GPS
To be honest I knew that we all would be in a world where everyone can be tracked either by GPS or by SECURITY CAMERA'S, as it seems that the government want to be able to know what people are up to in there daily lives. In a way it's a good thing as it makes tracking criminals easier for the authorities to keep a eye on crime, but also it can be classed as spying on people who well could be honest people, I know this may sound silly to some people but I think it's programs like Big Brother that have paved the way the world is going by watching every move we make. To sum up GPS is a good and a bad thing, but also the way technology has grown over the last 20 years it was inevitable that the way we are watched would only get more complex as more and more inventions are created to watch our daily lives.