Posted on 03/01/2002 5:16:24 PM PST by truthandlife
The nation's cell phone service providers will soon know exactly where every one of their customers is, at all times, and privacy rights groups are asking what they plan to do with the information.
All U.S. carriers are under Federal Communications Commission orders to make it possible for police to locate cell phones calling 911, something police can't do now. Carriers plan to use the same systems to sell services like helping stranded motorists even if they don't know their location, or finding the closest restaurant.
Because people with cell phone generally always carry their phone with them, the FCC regulations give the thriving market for personal information something its never had a chance to get: the exact locations at all times of more than 140 million people.
"There are some things you don't mind other people knowing, but your location isn't one of them," said Gary Laden, a privacy program director for BBBOnline, a Better Business Bureau subsidiary.
Private details that become public knowledge every time people visit Web pages and leave information, every address that the U.S. government sells, or every ATM transaction that dutifully records the time are just some of the ways that technology has been tracking individuals. But knowing someone's location at all times adds a significant new twist to tracking information about people.
Sprint is already offering an Enhanced 911 (E911) system in Rhode Island and sells a pair of phones that work on the system. In a year, Verizon Wireless says nearly half of all new handsets activated will have this capability. The FCC expects 95 percent of the cell phones sold in the United States by 2005 will meet the FCC guidelines.
Neither AT&T Wireless nor Verizon Wireless offer any E911 or related services yet. But both say they do not sell the information they already collect from their subscribers, such as a home address used to send a monthly bill. And they don't plan to do anything different with the location information once they do offer those services.
"We already know where you live, but we haven't made that available to anyone," Verizon Wireless representative Nancy Stark said.
Travis Larson, a spokesman for the wireless trade group Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association said the worry isn't so much the carriers, but the independent companies that provide the commercial services.
"Not all companies in this space will be CTIA members," he said. "Then you have a group of businesses unregulated."
So far, backers of two consumer privacy initiatives say they've begun talks with carriers about what they plan to do with the information they collect.
On Wednesday, AT&T Wireless spokesman Ritch Blasi said the company is the first U.S. carrier to have its privacy policies reviewed and approved by Truste, a coalition that approves online privacy policies, whose sponsors include AT&T Wireless, AOL Time Warner, Intel, Microsoft and others.
Truste and AT&T Wireless are also working together to create a uniform policy for what carriers should do with the information they collect. Blasi and a spokesman for Truste said they want carriers to tell subscribers that their location can be tracked, and what plans, if any, they have for the information.
Also Wednesday, supporters of a recently approved privacy standard known as P3P (Platform for Privacy Preferences) say they've also begun a dialogue with wireless carriers.
Some versions of Microsoft's Internet Explorer use P3P to automate the process of deciding if a Web site's privacy policies are good enough for a user. People can pre-load their Web browsers with preferences, such as whether they want a Web site to accept a browser's cookies filled with personal information. If the browser is directed toward a Web page, it'll seek out the privacy policies and determine if they match the preferred ones. If not, the Web page doesn't load.
Josh Freed, a spokesman for the Internet Education Foundation, said backers of P3P want to offer the same type of function to cell phone customers. "This way, every time there is an exchange of data, the phone alerts you if there is a conflict," he said.
The effort is very new, Freed and others warn, and is preceding even the existing technology.
"We have a blank page in front of us now," said J. Walter Hyer, AT&T Wireless chief privacy officer.
I'm cynical enough to expect that it's just a question of time before there are facial-recognition cameras virtually everywhere, recording every "anonymous" face they see. Although the faces will be "anonymous" they will nonetheless be collated, i.e., "anonymous_face_q892828" will have an "audit trail" of every camera it's been spotted by, with each entry timestamped. Eventually, "anonymous_face_q892828" will be in a venue where he's not anonymous, and voila! -- a name is attached to the formerly anonymous ID entry, and that person's entire past travel history will be there for the viewing.
Since the inception of cell phone service, it's been necessary for each tower to know "who" you are. When a call comes in, it goes to the tower you were last closest to, rather than going out to all towers. The way it "knows" (or assumes) you are there is because that was the last tower your phone registered with.
When you turn on your phone, it registers with the nearest tower. It will periodically re-register, and, when you travel to another tower's range, it will register with the new tower. So, as long as you've been within range of at least one tower, and your phone's been powered up, there is a record of (roughly) where you were, and when you were there. (This is how the "legacy" cell phone system has been working since inception.)
Then you know that someone can also activate the microphone, and listen in to whatever is near the phone. Those microphones are really sensitive, the sound does not need to be real close.
Whether that's x42 or Rosie O'donnel I don't know.
Something like in "The Terminator"?
I mean, really, what use is tracking for the average American.... why would a high level security agency even care? This isn't Big Brother knowing our moves, this is 911.....
The secuity expert traced the computer trail to the Caolinas, then with LEOs, drove the area with with directional antennas he mounted on a van.
The hacker was using a portable computer, but don't remember how he was transmitting. Records showed that he frequently moved.
I,also, know this from on-the-job. A cell phone can be remotely used for more than just tracking purposes, it can also be used to eavesdrop.
too late
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