Cellphone E911 Homing technology could be abused by marketing


warforpeace used our news submit to tell us that E911-enabled cell phones in the US could be abused by marketing if location data gets passed on. warforpeace wrote "In case you people were wondering how this would affect your lives, please coroborate this piece of information with others present in the full article or the recend DVD Homing Devices recently implemented. Seems like all big companies would like to have human beings' locations pinpointed for their wish. So please don't go to your adultery lover's house and 'play big' with your new cellphone, your wife (or husband) may be watching!"

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The Wireless Communications and Public Safety Act of 1999 (US) anticipated that all cell phone carriers will feature E911 technology by 2006. E911 is a Global Positioning Technology that allows a wireless carrier for an E911-capable phone to pinpoint its coordinates. As long as an E911-enabled phone is switched on, it will continuously send out its location to the wireless carrier.  The technology is supposed to allow emergency services such as the police to trace a lost or trapped person quickly as long as their phone is in network coverage. Now, one may ask: What has this got to do with CDs or DVDs?

 

As anyone with one of these E911-enabled phones can be traced by their network provider, it can be become a serious privacy issue if this information is passed on.  Before any third party can grab the location of a given consumer's handset, that consumer have already agreed to allow their location data to be shared with third parties. As with many software products and even hardware products, the consumer may have to allow their details to be shared in order to use, install or activate the product. Software examples include many peer-to-peer and other 'freeware' applications. This licensing technique could be put into new E911-enabled phones where the subscriber must agree to pass their data location to third parties in order to activate their phone! This detail could be well hidden in the license agreement like with the 'one year minimum contract' condition. 

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CD, DVD and many other retailers could easily abuse this technology such as watching which shops a consumer buys their products in. For example, if consumer is known to buy DVDs from containing Mel Gibson from an online DVD shop, they could be sent text messages from that online DVD shop as soon as they enter a DVD store such as "Did you know that our Mel Gibson DVDs are $ 2 or more cheaper than the DVD shop you are currently in?". If that consumer decides to wait a few days by getting it cheaper online, then that shop would lose a customer. 

 

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IF YOU PURCHASED A NEW CELLPHONE over the past 18 months or so, odds are that one of the features listed in small print on the side of the box was "E911 capable." Or, as in the case of my latest Motorola, "Location technology for piece [sic] of mind." Perhaps you asked the salesman to explain the feature, and he replied that it means that cops can home in on your phone in case of an emergency, a potentially important perk should you ever find your hand pinned beneath an immovable boulder in rural Utah, as Aron Ralston did recently. Assuming he could have gotten a signal, an E911-capable phone might have saved the young backpacker the pain of having to amputate his own arm.

What your salesman probably failed to tell you'”and may not even realize'”is that an E911-capable phone can give your wireless carrier continual updates on your location. The phone is embedded with a Global Positioning System chip, which can calculate your coordinates to within a few yards by receiving signals from satellites. GPS technology gave U.S. military commanders a vital edge during Gulf War II, and sailors and pilots depend on it as well. In the E911-capable phone, the GPS chip does not wait until it senses danger, springing to life when catastrophe strikes; it's switched on whenever your handset is powered up and is always ready to transmit your location data back to a wireless carrier's computers. Verizon or T-Mobile can figure out which manicurist you visit just as easily as they can pinpoint a stranded motorist on Highway 59.

So what's preventing them from doing so, at the behest of either direct marketers or, perhaps more chillingly, the police? Not the law, which is essentially mum on the subject of location-data privacy. As often happens with emergent technology, the law has struggled to keep pace with the gizmo. No federal statute is keeping your wireless provider from informing Dunkin' Donuts that your visits to Starbucks have been dropping off and you may be ripe for a special coupon offer. Nor are cops explicitly required to obtain a judicial warrant before compiling a record of where you sneaked off to last Thursday night. Despite such obvious potential for abuse, the Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Trade Commission, the American consumer's ostensible protectors, show little enthusiasm for stepping into the breach. As things stand now, the only real barrier to the dissemination of your daily movements is the benevolence of the telecommunications industry. A show of hands from those who find this a comforting thought? Anyone?

Read the full source here.

 

I never knew that any mobile/cell phone manufacturer implemented GPS tracking technology in their hand sets. It is one thing for the emergency and police services to avail of consumer's location data such as tracking a stolen handset or an emergency, but would be a serious privacy concern if consumer's location data would be passed onto third parties. As theUS has taken on this technology, then other continents may likely follow. GPS technology is already
in use by transport company vehicles to make sure their drivers are not taking
detours or making unnecessary breaks with their trucks.

 

Read about how GPS technology works here.

Source: Softnews.ro

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