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In (every carrier's) defense! -- Re: location information & Cell Service
From: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2009 10:48:55 -0400
Begin forwarded message: From: Ethan Ackerman <eackerma () u washington edu> Date: April 16, 2009 10:25:17 AM EDT To: dave () farber netSubject: Re: In (every carrier's) defense! -- Re: [IP] location information & Cell Service
Reply-To: eackerma () u washington edu Greetings Dave, IPers following this might be interested in/disappointed to know that a particular, almost quirky, wording of the federal communications privacy law likely shields the carriers providing these type of account-based tracking services - regardless of any notifications to individual users. Opinions may differ on whether it's bad or horrible, but it's written that way in the statute. Location information from cellular services is actually more protected under federal law than many other types of 'private' information. It's disclosure requires an opt-in of the 'customer.' The problem is, the 'customer' isn't always the same as the 'user.' The relevant portion of the Communications Act ( http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/47/222.html#f ) says disclosure of "call location information concerning the _user_" isn't permitted "without the express prior authorization of the _customer_" It's this distinction the carriers are likely relying on. -Ethan On Wed, Apr 15, 2009 at 7:38 PM, David Farber <dave () farber net> wrote:
Begin forwarded message: From: Lauren Weinstein <lauren () vortex com> Date: April 15, 2009 5:07:29 PM EDT To: David Farber <dave () farber net> Subject: In Verizon's defense! -- Re: [IP] VERIZON offers this too: Warning: AT&T's New "Spouse Stalking" Cell Service Dave, I have to come to Verizon's defense on this. Assuming that we're talking about the same thing, the Verizon tracking service that Peter is referring to is very different from the new AT&T service that can be so easily abused for stalking. In particular, as discussed at: http://support.vzw.com/faqs/Chaperone/faq_chaperone.html#item25 Verizon's service uses special phones, and they give an obvious visible indication every time that a location track is in progress. This is very different from AT&T's FamilyMap, which tracks silently for a month after a single notification attempt, and apparently does so with virtually any non-pre-pay cell phone. There is nothing inherently evil about location-based mobile applications -- the ones I have on my G1 are great and I have total control over how and when they're used. But implementation details matter tremendously when designing such systems. --Lauren-- Lauren Weinstein lauren () vortex com Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800 http://www.pfir.org/lauren Co-Founder, PFIR - People For Internet Responsibility - http://www.pfir.org Co-Founder, NNSquad - Network Neutrality Squad - http://www.nnsquad.org Founder, GCTIP - Global Coalition for Transparent Internet Performance - http://www.gctip.org Founder, PRIVACY Forum - http://www.vortex.com Member, ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy Lauren's Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com Twitter: LW1 - - - On 04/15 16:34, David Farber wrote:Begin forwarded message: From: "Peter Jensen" <peter () peterjensen com> Date: April 15, 2009 2:44:24 PM EDT To: "David Farber" <dave () farber net>Subject: Re: [IP] VERIZON offers this too: Warning: AT&T's New "SpouseStalking" Cell Service I was purchasing a new phone at a Verizon store two days ago, andoverheard the salesman offering this tracking (i.e. stalking) service toa customer. A "Parent" and "Child" phone are set up and initialized that way.Called "FamilyMap" ( http://www.att.com/familymap ), the serviceallows the account owner to track the location of other cell phones in the account over the Internet or on their own cell phones. While this concept isn't particularly new, the manner of implementation that AT&Thas chosen for this service is quite alarming. Rather than following the conventional procedure of requiring confirmation from a cell phone that its user wishes to permittracking, FamilyMap allows for the activation of tracking based solelyat the discretion of the account owner.From what I overheard, the Verizon phones do not require any further permission to be used in this manner. That is specifically what the salesman was offering the customer. Peter Jensen ------------------------------------------- Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/247/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/247/ Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com------------------------------------------- Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/247/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/247/ Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
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- In (every carrier's) defense! -- Re: location information & Cell Service David Farber (Apr 16)