Subject: FYI: THE LOCATION PRIVACY BILL

From: [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2001 13:46:46 -0600

Something members of this list should be aware of:

Regards

Carl Reed, PhD
Director of Specification Development
Open GIS Consortium

THE LOCATION PRIVACY BILL
U.S. Senator John Edwards, a North Carolina Democrat, introduced the
Location Privacy Protection Act last week. The bill requires companies
that provide wireless location-based services (traffic, entertainment,
friend-finders, etc.) to notify users when they collect information about
their location. Sale of collected personal information will require the
located person's consent as well.

The idea is to protect personal information while not interrupting
emergency response. One of the senator's aides noted that police would
still need a warrant to access the data to track crimes.

Earlier this year Edwards introduced the Spyware Control and Privacy
Protection Act to limit the tracking of online movements and shopping
habits. He has been active in the Senate's Commerce Committee, where both
of these topics were introduced.

In related topics, the use of facial maps to track criminals attending the
2001 SuperBowl and the recent speeding fine from a rent-a-car agency based
on GPS speed tracking raise serious concerns among privacy champions.
Despite early reluctance, companies collecting this type of information
are beginning to realize that a single national set of regulations may be
far better than a mosaic of state and local laws on the topic.

I'm curious if this extends to the likes of Quova and Akamai, who track
location from a wired connection. The method of determining the location
is different, but these companies in essence still "sell" your location.
For now, these services define only a course level of geography (city,
country) but that may change.

Location Privacy Bill Introduced (allnetdevices)
http://www.allnetdevices.com/wireless/
news/2001/07/13/location_privacy.html 

New Privacy Bill Targets Wireless Tracking Technology (WirelessNewsFactor)
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nf/20010713/tc/12013_1.html

Edwards wants to protect consumers' privacy (Winston-Salem Journal)
http://www.journalnow.com/wsj/news/MGBKZU9M7PC.html