Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Scholar Sees GPS-Enabled Devices as Potential Threats to Privacy

From: Marcel <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 14 Mar 2003 00:22:48 -0500

Scholar Sees GPS-Enabled Devices as Potential Threats to Privacy

A University of Kansas research professor and expert on global mapping and tracking is
concerned that there is potential for nightmarish abuse of privacy with the proliferation
of location-sensing devices. Already on the market are products that can provide real-time
location information on people, or send turn-by-turn data on a vehicle's location. Jerome
Dobson is concerned that such devices could soon be modified with signals that, for
example, could burn or sting, thereby allowing someone else to control where the
device-wearer can go, or not go. Serious abuse of the technology would be less likely in
the U.S., which has a tradition of personal freedom, Dobson said. But in the hands of a
repressive regime, abuse of the devices could be devastating.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Posted 3/7/2003 4:33 PM

Will GPS technology lead to 'geoslavery'?

LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) — Jerome Dobson worries that
1984 may be just around the corner. Dobson, a University of
Kansas research professor and president of the American
Geographical Society, is concerned that technical advances
carry the potential for bringing about George Orwell's
nightmarish vision of a society that destroys privacy. This new
threat, says Dobson — a respected leader in the field of
geographic information technologies — is "geoslavery."

Wherify's GPS
watch can
pinpoint the
wearer's
location within
a few feet.

Wherify Wireless

Devices currently on the market, for example, use satellites to locate and track people
anywhere on the
planet.

One company sells a device that can record a vehicle's location so employers can keep
track of every
move their drivers make.

Another company makes implanted chips to keep track of livestock or pets, and a device
that looks like a
digital wristwatch that can pinpoint the wearer's location and sound an alarm.

Dobson knows the good these devices do, but he also worries that they may be abused. He
hopes his
fearful vision will create debate and perhaps legislation or safeguards around the
technology that will keep
it from being misused.

Already the technologies are sparking debates regarding privacy. Add a transponder to a
locked device,
he says, and the punitive possibilities are endless.

"What we are suggesting," Dobson says, "is that we are only one technological step from
placing a
transponder in there that burns or stings a person if they step off a prescribed path by a
meter. Or if they
stay too long in one place. Or cross the path of another person they are prohibited from
seeing, or if they
congregate with other people.

"I can confine you to a place. You can't go there. Or you must go there. And I can control
it."

In the hands of repressive governmental regimes, the devices could be devastating, Dobson
said, just as
they could be in people's personal lives.

Before going to Kansas less than two years ago, Dobson worked 26 years at Tennessee's Oak
Ridge
National Laboratory creating, for the government, the maps used in global tracking.

"We may avoid the most serious abuses of this technology in the U.S. because we have a
tradition of
personal freedom," he says. "But it will differ by country and by culture. Think of the
countries where they
already have ethnic cleansing.

"The phrase I like to use to bring this home is to ask, 'How long would Anne Frank's diary
be if she were
wearing one of these nifty devices?' "

Scholar Sees GPS-Enabled Devices as Potential Threats to Privacy A University of Kansas
research professor and expert on global mapping and tracking is concerned that there is
potential for nightmarish abuse of privacy with the proliferation of location-sensing
devices. Already on the market are products that can provide real-time location
information on people, or send turn-by-turn data on a vehicle's location. Jerome Dobson is
concerned that such devices could soon be modified with signals that, for example, could
burn or sting, thereby allowing someone else to control where the device-wearer can go, or
not go. Serious abuse of the technology would be less likely in the U.S., which has a
tradition of personal freedom, Dobson said. But in the hands of a repressive regime, abuse
of the devices could be devastating.

Posted 3/7/2003 4:33 PM

Will GPS technology lead to 'geoslavery'?

LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) — Jerome Dobson worries that
1984 may be just around the corner. Dobson, a University of
Kansas research professor and president of the American
Geographical Society, is concerned that technical advances
carry the potential for bringing about George Orwell's
nightmarish vision of a society that destroys privacy. This new
threat, says Dobson — a respected leader in the field of
geographic information technologies — is "geoslavery."

Wherify's GPS
watch can
pinpoint the
wearer's
location within
a few feet.

Wherify Wireless

Devices currently on the market, for example, use satellites to locate and track people
anywhere on the
planet.

One company sells a device that can record a vehicle's location so employers can keep
track of every
move their drivers make.

Another company makes implanted chips to keep track of livestock or pets, and a device
that looks like a
digital wristwatch that can pinpoint the wearer's location and sound an alarm.

Dobson knows the good these devices do, but he also worries that they may be abused. He
hopes his
fearful vision will create debate and perhaps legislation or safeguards around the
technology that will keep
it from being misused.

Already the technologies are sparking debates regarding privacy. Add a transponder to a
locked device,
he says, and the punitive possibilities are endless.

"What we are suggesting," Dobson says, "is that we are only one technological step from
placing a
transponder in there that burns or stings a person if they step off a prescribed path by a
meter. Or if they
stay too long in one place. Or cross the path of another person they are prohibited from
seeing, or if they
congregate with other people.

"I can confine you to a place. You can't go there. Or you must go there. And I can control
it."

In the hands of repressive governmental regimes, the devices could be devastating, Dobson
said, just as
they could be in people's personal lives.

Before going to Kansas less than two years ago, Dobson worked 26 years at Tennessee's Oak
Ridge
National Laboratory creating, for the government, the maps used in global tracking.

"We may avoid the most serious abuses of this technology in the U.S. because we have a
tradition of
personal freedom," he says. "But it will differ by country and by culture. Think of the
countries where they
already have ethnic cleansing.

"The phrase I like to use to bring this home is to ask, 'How long would Anne Frank's diary
be if she were
wearing one of these nifty devices?' "
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/techpolicy/2003-03-07-geo-slavery_x.htm

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