GPS cell phone tracking and privacy October 27, 2006
Posted by Rich in : GPS tracking and privacy, GPS tracking cell phones , add a commentA British site, the Guardian Unlimited, has a good story on GPS cell phone tracking. Would you willingly trade your right to privacy for convenience? Tim Hibbard thinks so. He predicts that “convenience will rule:”
People are very willing to give up their privacy… You just have to give them a good reason to do so. If you can assist a person in their everyday life, they will be more than happy to divulge their current location. For example, you can synchronise your calendar with your GPS device and be alerted when you need to leave for an appointment, following a route that’s been automatically generated based on real-time traffic conditions. Or you can be alerted when you are six blocks from a store that contains an item that is on your online shopping list.
Technorati tags: GPS tracking
GPS tracking and public safety October 21, 2006
Posted by Rich in : GPS tracking and public safety , add a commentA couple of GPS tracking news items caught me eye in the past few days:
- Oakland California police have installed a GPS and sensor net combination to alert them to where gunshots originate in the city. It utilizes the ShotSpotter system. According to Oakland police spokesman Pete Sarna, “It’s going to allow us to respond to gunfire in 30 seconds.”
- Even closer to my own backyard, the city of Ukiah, California has decided to purchase a GPS system that clears roads in emergency situations, by pre-empting traffic signals. This will be done using 3M’s Opticom GPS Priority Control System.
Technorati tags: GPS tracking, Sensor nets
Does GPS tracking by police amount to an illegal search? October 14, 2006
Posted by Rich in : GPS tracking law , 2 commentsCYB3RCRIM3, a blog by Susan Brenner, a law professor specializing in cybercrime, has an excellent two-part post on GPS tracking and the fourth amendment (here is a link to part two). This is a complex subject, as you might gather from this snippet:
Putting the device on a vehicle is not, I would submit, a “search” because a search violates a valid 4th Amendment expectation of privacy. The issue that’s coming up in these cases is whether the 4th Amendment is implicated when a tracking device is installed on a “public” area of a vehicle: under a bumper, on the undercarriage, etc. It’s clear that officers cannot go into “private” areas of a vehicle (the trunk, under the hood, inside the passenger compartment, etc.) without having a warrant; that would clearly be a search regardless of whether their motive is to install a tracking device or just to look around (or both). When the devices are installed on areas that are, at least arguably, accessible to the general public, I don’t think we can legitimately characterize the act of installing them as a “search.” After all, what “private” information do the officers obtain by doing so?
I tend to think, though, that the act of installing a tracking device on such a “public” area of a vehicle is a seizure under the 4th Amendment. Seizures occur when agents of the government interfere with someone’s possession and use of their vehicle. Now, when an officer sneaks up to a car at night or at some other time when it is parked and is not being used by the owner and installs a GPS device, there would not seem to be any particular interference with the owner’s possession and use of the property. The owner never even knows what’s happened – that’s the whole point.
Technorati tag: GPS tracking
