THE GPS INVASION
Most of the technologies creating what some call the Fishbowl Society aren't cutting-edge. As Richard Hunter, author of World Without Secrets, notes, the technology "isn't necessarily new, but is newly ubiquitous." Take the GPS that nailed Turner. Conceived by the U.S. military in the 1960s, the Global Positioning System network took more than 20 years to come online. Yet, GPS tracking is on its way to becoming a $28 billion-a-year industry by 2008. GM's OnStar system, for example, places GPS in millions of cars. Those cars can be tracked at the behest of the police and government agencies.
Lately, GPS technology has expanded into a controversial new area: cellphones. Federal regulations require all cellphone networks to be enabled with an E911 system; this allows a cellphone's location to be isolated to within 100 meters using triangulation between three cellphone towers or as close as a few feet using a GPS chip. While E911 ostensibly sends location information only when someone dials 911, newer phones incorporate location-based services, and can constantly send precise location information back to the cellular provider.
"In essence, every cellphone in America is now a pocket tracking device," says Beth Givens of the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, a consumer advocacy group in San Diego.
Watchdogs like Givens say E911 technology, though intended as a public service, is ripe for abuse. Some cases are already working their way through the courts. In August 2004 Ara Gabrielyan was arrested in Glendale, Calif., after allegedly duct taping a GPS-enabled phone under his ex-girlfriend's car to track her movements. "This is what I would call stalking of the 21st century," Lt. John Perkins of the Glendale Police Department told reporters. Gabrielyan, 32, pleaded innocent to stalking and making terrorist threats, and is awaiting trial on $500,000 bail.
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According to police, Gabrielyan subscribed to one of the handful of new services that allow a cellphone's owner to track its movements over the Internet. Sites like ULocate and FollowUs show a phone's location and the speed at which it's moving, all superimposed on digital maps detailed to street level. Not surprisingly, these do-it-yourself tracking services have attracted plenty of critics. FollowUs, for example, was recently labeled one of the "most invasive companies" by the advocacy group Privacy International. Still, there is no shortage of entrepreneurs trying to turn GPS tracking into a profitable business. AirIQ, the company used by ACME to monitor renters like James Turner, integrates five technologies--wireless communication, GPS tracking, digital mapping, computing intelligence and the Internet--to create "telematics," a high-tech, low-cost serv-ice used by some car rental firms, large distribution com-panies and commercial boat owners. AirIQ CEO Don Simmonds even uses his system to enforce no-speeding rules on his three teenagers. "If one of my kids exceeds 80 mph for more than a minute, I get a message on my BlackBerry." His kids get a $25 fine and Simmonds gets peace of mind--and the ability to locate his kids in an instant. While it's not known what Simmonds's children think of this system, it's quickly becoming apparent that rental car customers hate it. Currently, the industry's top guns, Hertz and Avis, say they use GPS solely for fleet monitoring. But some of the smaller players are using the technology for contract enforcement, with decidedly mixed results. In 2004, dozens of complaints were filed against San Francisco rental firm Payless when it used GPS tracking to prove drivers crossed state lines, something the rental contract's small print forbade. In November 2003, Canadian tourist Byungsoo Son was charged $1 for every mile he traveled outside California in a Payless car. His rental fee catapulted from $260 to an eye-opening $3400. The dispute was settled out of court. As for Turner, in May 2004 a court ruled he'd been unfairly penalized, but rejected his claim for damages. Turner appealed. "This kind of tracking can't be ignored," he says. State legislators agree. New "anti-GPS tracking" laws have been enacted in California and New York, banning rental firms from deploying what outgoing California Assembly member Ellen Corbett called the "Big Brother tactics" of using GPS technology to impose penalties for speeding or crossing state lines. |