Are we ready for location-based technology tracking our
every move? James Harkin believes unlimited government surveillance
could have mobile phone users switching off in
droves.
The biggest leap forward enabled by next-generation mobile
devices lies in the coming to maturity of "location-aware" or
"context-aware" technology.
Wireless phone operators can already locate the source of a mobile
phone transmission to the nearest cell in which the phone is being
used: data which is, at best, accurate to within about 500m. But a
convergence of different technologies is now making it possible to
locate a mobile to within a few metres, enabling location-specific
services.
Improved context-awareness may not emerge as the killer app that
will prompt consumers to buy the new phones (sexier services such
as video telephony may do that), but it is likely to be the one
used most creatively and to have the most profound effect on the
fabric of society.
As the technology develops it will send us personalised information
about places we happen to be passing and will also help to overhaul
the delivery of public services. The new mobiles, for example, will
enable the emergency services to locate a caller and dramatically
reduce response times.
The question is: are we are ready for this? The mobile phone is
already a suspect device, frowned on in public spaces as
anti-social; it has been blamed for everything from frying our
brains to sparking a crime wave and causing teenage illiteracy.
Once the next-generation devices are widely available, it will be
accused of being a tracking device.
How emerging fears about location-based "spamming" of our mobiles
are resolved will turn on whether the benefits of the technology
are perceived as worth the intrusion into our personal space.
Marketeers will find that unless their communications are welcome
they will backfire. But unless mobile users are prepared to trade
their privacy enough for organisations to build up a profile of
what they want, the technology will end up a dead duck.
Tensions also look likely to arise between citizens and governments
which help themselves to broad powers of access to location-based
data. Last year the UK government proposed to extend the Regulation
of Investigatory Powers Act to a range of government bodies to gain
access to communications data. After vigorous protests from civil
liberties campaigners it backed down.
The new mobile devices mean the authorities will have ready access
to a map of our daily movements. Unless there are clear limits on
how government can use the information it gleans from our mobile
communications there may well be a quasi-Luddite backlash against
the technology itself.
In the hands of governments that are keen to add to the machinery
of surveillance, location-sensitive IT might be used to hold
individuals accountable for their day-to-day activities.
A government with genuine confidence in its public would undertake
only to request mobile location data to investigate clearly defined
categories of serious crime. If not resolved properly, our concerns
about privacy might even result in the increased environmental
awareness of the new phones being turned off at the point of
use.
Important though some of those concerns are, we should strive to
ensure that they do not impede the development of the technology
itself. That means putting our trust in the technology as well as
hoping for a government that trusts us.
What do you think?
Can you see any benefits to mobile tracking technology?
Tell us in an e-mail
>> ComputerWeekly.com reserves the right to edit and publish
answers on the website. Please state if your answer is not for
publication.
James Harkin is the author of Mobilisation:
the growing public interest in mobile technology, published by
Demos
james@wildblue.org.uk