Your Cellphone is a Homing Device

If you purchased a cell phone in the past 18 months, it likely comes with E911 capability - that is, they can tell where you are when you call 911 - which was not the case, tragically in some cases, with older cell phones. But the locator feature - actually, a GPS chip in the phone - is not just for emergencies. Some people are using it to track their family members. It's only a matter of time before companies start using the information collected about your movements for marketing purposes. (Spam text messages, anyone?) And, of course, the cell phone companies will have huge repositories of data on the movements of everyone in the country with a phone - a source that John Ashcroft and his ilk would love to get their hands on. ("Where were you on the night of the crime? Nevermind, we know where you were, and who you were with.") This article in Legal Affairs magazine explores some of the privacy issues involved. (Via Howard Bashman at How Appealing.)

Comments

[Mac]

That's something scary I hadn't even considered.

[Mithras]

That's my job - scare the crap out of people, in a constructive way, of course.