A new generation of relatively cheap GPS-equipped devices is allowing people for the first time to keep constant tabs on their rebellious teens, wandering spouses or loafing employees, leading some to be concerned about the eroding sense of personal privacy.
The myriad benefits promised by the launch of new positioning systems are opening up a future where we need never lose our way - or our mobile phones - and where our movements may be tracked around the clock by a "spy-in-the-sky".
Personal location devices are beginning to catch on, largely because cellular phones are increasingly coming with a built-in tether. A federal mandate that wireless carriers be able to locate callers who dial 911 automatically by late 2005 means that millions of phones already keep track of their owners' whereabouts. Analysts predict that as many as 42 million Americans will be using some form of "location-aware" technology in 2005.
In a world where sensor networking and location tracking technology is becoming increasingly sophisticated and prevalent, preserving privacy is an increasingly difficult challenge. Researchers from the University of Colorado at Boulder have addressed the problem with a way to set up networks of tiny sensors that allows users to gain useful traffic statistics but preserves privacy by cloaking location information for any given individual.
New technologies can pinpoint your location at any time and place. They promise safety and convenience?but threaten privacy and security.
The authors warn that location-based surveillance technologies could be used by repressive regimes to enslave populations.
Jerome Dobson worries that 1984 may be just around the corner. Dobson, a University of Kansas research professor and president of the American Geographical Society, is concerned that technical advances carry the potential for bringing about George Orwell's nightmarish vision of a society that destroys privacy. This new threat, says Dobson -- a respected leader in the field of geographic information technologies -- is "geoslavery."