FC: Wireless tech and tracking raises privacy concerns, from NYT

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

[The NYT is a few months late. Even the FTC, hardly out in front of new 
technologies, held a workshop on wireless privacy last year: 
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,40623,00.html Also, note the 
irony here. It was the FCC that required location-tracking as part of its 
e911 regs. --Declan]

---

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/04/technology/04LOCA.html?printpage=yes

March 4, 2001

Locating Devices Gain in Popularity but Raise Privacy Concerns

By SIMON ROMERO

Wireless systems capable of tracking vehicles and people all over the 
planet are leaving businesses aglow with new possibilities, and some 
privacy advocates deeply concerned.

Companies seeking to tap the commercial potential of these technologies are 
installing wireless location systems in vehicles, hand-held computers, cell 
phones — even watchbands. Scientists have developed a chip that can be 
inserted beneath the skin, so that a person's location can be pinpointed 
anywhere.

One early user of this technology is David Hancock, the owner of a small 
company in Dallas that installs automobile alarms. Mr. Hancock uses a 
wireless tracking service to monitor his fleet of six Dodge Dakota pickup 
trucks, and the equipment alerted him recently when one of his trucks 
turned up in the parking lot of the Million Dollar Saloon, a strip club.

"When I signed up for this service I told my guys, `Big Brother's keeping 
an eye on you, and I'm Big Brother,' " Mr. Hancock said. "After I fired 
that one fellow, you bet they all believed me."

These technologies have become one of the fastest-growing areas of the 
wireless communications industry. The market for location-based services is 
already estimated at nearly $600 million and is forecast to approach $5 
billion within three years, according to IDC, a technology research company.

A federal effort to make it easier to pinpoint the location of people 
making emergency 911 calls from mobile phones means that by next year cell 
phones sold in the United States will be equipped with advanced wireless 
tracking technology.

[...]




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