GPS Tracking Privacy Issues

This is a good article that talks about the state of survelliance using GPS Tracking technology and how it can affect society. The author, Robert Ing gives a great example of the movie "Enemy of the State", starring Will Smith, and how invasive technology has become. The author goes beyond GPS tracking and talks about other forms of personal data collection that is all too common in this day and age. Read on for an interesting discussion.

In the 1998 movie, "Enemy of the State", actor Will Smith's
personal privacy is invaded by his own government using high
technology devices planted in his home, office and even on his
person. Sounds far fetched? The technology does exist to do
everything portrayed in the movie and much more. The only
difference between the movie and real life is that unlike the
movie where government agents physically entered the home and
office of Smith, this is not necessary to breach the privacy of
any citizen.

If you are like most individuals, you have unknowingly
permitted yourself to be tracked, documented and your privacy
breached in exchange for living a life of convenience. When you
sign applications and agreements for your credit cards, bank
accounts, vehicle leases and mortgages have you really read the
fine print? The fine print in most cases states that you give
your permission to have your personal information collected by,
"exchanged" with, and even sold to third parties throughout the
course of your business dealings. Do you belong to a reward
points or discount program? The fine print of the agreement may
allow program operators to track your spending habits (where and
what you buy), allow them to share and even sell this
information to third parties and put you on mailing and
telephone solicitation lists of companies you've never heard of.

While this may seem more of an inconvenience than an invasion
of privacy consider the case of Mr. X. Mr. X had signed up for a
reward points program linked to his credit card. This meant
everywhere and every time he used his credit card he would get
points for all of his transactions to be used towards vacations,
gasoline and a new car. Mr. X was in line for a promotion with
his firm, a major multi-national corporation. As part of the
selection process he would have to submit to a background check
and security clearance. The firm conducting the check performed
what is known as a character lifestyle check and through their
sources were able to obtain a record of Mr. X's spending habits
over a two year period as documented by the reward points
program he had enrolled in. It was noted by an entry on his
spending record that he had on one occasion frequented a small
retail establishment whose operator had been convicted of child
pornography. As a result, Mr. X was not given a clearance for
the promotion and was later released from the firm's employ.
Further investigation found that the establishment in question
was a convenience store chain where Mr. X purchased a box of
chocolates for his wife's birthday. This was the one and only
documented time he had entered this establishment.

Similar tracking of individuals is also done via their personal
computers. In this case, most individuals are all too quick to
breeze through the Terms of Service posted on websites and in
software and as a result surrender their privacy all too easily.
People who do any form of online commerce from ordering
merchandise off of a website, to online banking and stock
trading are often tracked by having small files placed on their
computers without their knowledge, known as cookies to gather
and track personal and personal preference information. By
accepting the Terms of Service users agree to have the cookies
placed on their computer. Although the word "cookie" may not be
specifically used in the text of the document. Cookies, also
known in the computer security world as Spyware may provide
information about the computer owners name, address, telephone
number and e-mail address all culled from information provided
by the users themselves when they first registered their
computer operating system and software. Additional information
may be obtained on the type of software and computer used,
websites visited, Internet searches performed and total time
spent at the computer.

Tags: gps tracking - personal computers - privacy issues - cookies

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