Wireless Tracking Draws Privacy Questions

Some of the wireless products that you might use to track your children or for other purposes apparently fall outside the scope of federal privacy laws. One industry group said that might have to change.

According to CNET News, a panel discussion held by the Congressional Internet Caucus Advisory Committee (a group designed to keep legislative aides informed), many of the products that use geographic location technology, like the GPS system so popular with automobile drivers do not have to meet the same standards as wireless phone carriers. This was according to an executive of the wireless phone industry.

"We're going to see in the next year pretty much all of the national wireless carriers deploy handsets that work on licensed commercial spectrum and also work off Wi-Fi hot spots," said Michael Altschul, general counsel to the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association (CTIA). "I don't want a customer who starts a call in a Starbucks using a Wi-Fi hot spot, then steps outside and the call is handed off to a commercial mobile service, to have different privacy expectations."

His concerns stem from Section 222 of the Communications Act that specifies that "telecommunications carriers" must meet certain safeguards to protect their subscribers' personal information and call records.

These concerns came about over a new federal requirement that cell phone carriers install geographic-tracking technology in order for 911 dispatchers to pinpoint their calls, CTIA petitioned the FCC in 2000 to adopt new privacy rules dealing specifically with geographic location info.

The wireless industry reasoned that providing consumers with a "uniform set of expectations as to how their privacy rights would be protected" would be good for business, speeding the emergence of new, location-based services in the marketplace, Altschul said. But the FCC rejected that proposal in 2002.

Jed Rice, a vice president with Skyhook Wireless, which develops software that uses Wi-Fi to pinpoint a person's location, admitted that his company is not subject to federal regulations. Skyhook makes a piece of free software that uses Wi-Fi hot spots to triangulate a user's location within 20 meters and then tailors search results to that spot. He emphasized that his company has "no record of who you are," and all users remain "completely anonymous. That doesn't mean we're not …getting involved to look at…what standards are set by watchdog groups…who are very interested in issues about privacy."

The controversy over location tracking doesn't appear to be going away anytime soon.

Unexpected ramifications have arisen. Google plans to provide free Wi-Fi to San Francisco residents, but the company revealed it planned to use geographic data to tailor advertising to users, unless they pay for a faster service from EarthLink.

This would possibly lead to an even greater disparity in the rising feeling by many Americans that this is becoming a country of haves and have-nots. Americans may feel that they should not have to "pay" for their privacy.
Another issue is use of this technology by law enforcement. A surveillance law known as the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) was passed in 1994. FBI officials said they wouldn't use the law to track mobile phones.

Court cases in recent years have shown that investigative tactic has been occurring--and judges have been divided on how to view such tracking. One federal judge in New York ruled last December that federal police could monitor the location of Americans by constantly tracking their cell phone signal without providing evidence of criminal activity.

And the National Security Agency revealed that it has tracked tens of millions of domestic phone calls made in the U.S. Add to that the fact that "spyware" can track what you use your computer for, maybe my mother was right.

"If you can't say something nice about someone, don't say anything at all."

Wireless Tracking