Atlanta Companies Track Gridlock Via Cell Phones -- Privacy Implications

[mcscajun]

Atlanta's horrendous traffic has inspired two companies that are looking to monitor many more roads and highways than is done today and at a much lower cost. Their approach: Track the signals of cell phones that happen to be inside cars.

(snip)

"Location is one of the unique attributes of a cell phone," Ward said. "There is a lot of value there and a lot of potential for abuse. From my sense, the carriers have invested quite a lot of money to develop these systems and they're very unlikely to let those streams back out."

(snip)

Privacy advocates are already raising a red flag.

"This is your personal information. Shouldn't you have the right to control whether people know where you are?" asked Melissa Ngo of the Washington-based Electronic Privacy Information Center. "When I signed up for a cell phone, I did not sign up to be tracked."

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/technology/AP-Tracking-Traffic.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1162817645-ur/+5OtT26sRjUwDuJRxHg

[hobbit709]

1. One of the main reasons

that my cell phone stays OFF 90% of the time.

[napi21]

2. Sorry folks. All technology has risks.

I haveBroadband, and buy most of my stuff online using my CC. I know there's a risk, and I take all the precautions I know of to make sure my CC info is secure, but I'm willing to take the risk in exchange for the convenience.

Cell phones are the same deal. So is On Star etc. If you want the convenience of a cell phone, people are going to know where you are! Besides, what's the problem. You're sitting in a damn traffic jam. You think it's a problem that people know that?

[slaveplanet]

3. It's not the provider

quote:
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"When I signed up for a cell phone, I did not sign up to be tracked."
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Although, if you read the fine print, You probably did sign up to be tracked.

This is not some carrier thought up scam, this is by government mandate, and is engineered into every cellphone sold in the United States(and probably globally) since 2001 by the manufacturer. The GPS tracking technology can be triangulated to within 3 feet.

BTW- the tracking part is the least of the worries, just as the NSA can listen in over your landline telephone even when the receiver is on the hook. Eavesdropping can happen with the cellphones even when your not using them...you have to physically remove the battery to be safe from that. That is why all cellphones are confiscated and batteries removed before boarding Air Force One.

And on another note-In light of the new revelations that google is in bed with CIA, nothing with a microphone attached or embedded is safe, short of one of those old battery operated transistorized tape recorders.
The head of Google R&D plans to swipe the feeds from your microphones and webcams and make a database profile of everything that goes on in your home, It wouldn't surprise me if stealth mikes embedded in the motherboards were soon mandated.

Google developing eavesdropping software

Comment The first thing that came out of our mouths when we heard that Google is working on a system that listens to what's on your TV playing in the background, and then serves you relevant adverts, was "that's cool, but dangerous".

The idea appeared in Technology Review citing Peter Norvig, director of research at Google, who says these ideas will show up eventually in real Google products - sooner rather than later.

The idea is to use the existing PC microphone to listen to whatever is heard in the background, be it music, your phone going off or the TV turned down. The PC then identifies it, using fingerprinting, and then shows you relevant content, whether that's adverts or search results, or a chat room on the subject.

And, of course, we wouldn’t put it past Google to store that information away, along with the search terms it keeps that you've used, and the web pages you have visited, to help it create a personalised profile that feeds you just the right kind of adverts/content. And given that it is trying to develop alternative approaches to TV advertising, it could go the extra step and help send "content relevant" advertising to your TV as well.

We suspect that such a world would be rather eerie, with a constant feeling of déjà vu every time anyone watched TV.

more-http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/09/03/google_eavesdropping_software/