How Is GPS Tied to Cyber Communication?
- The proliferation of cell phones in the latter half of the past century led to problems for emergency services in that 911 emergency calls from cell phones were not easily traceable. As a consequence, the Federal Communications Commission ordered cell phone manufacturers to include a means for tracking cell phone locations by 2005. The response was to include a GPS chip in each phone. The development of Internet-enabled smart phones, combined with installed GPS chips and the proliferation of Wi-Fi wireless networks, has consequences for cyber communications.
- Free cell phone tracking applications are widely available on the Internet. These allow users to enter a cell phone number and, assuming the phone is on, find out where it is. Parents use the facility to track their children. Worried lovers use it to track partners suspected of being unfaithful. Cell phone providers use the technology to send out text messages when users leave calling plan areas. Employers use it to track employees using company cells and smart phones.
- Geotagging embeds geographical metadata (longitude, latitude and distance) to digital media, including video, text messages, photos, websites and RSS feeds. It allows the delivery of location-based information.
- Cell phone users are commonly unaware that photographs taken with smart phones are often automatically geotagged. When these pictures are published to the Internet, the geotag publishes with them, allowing the unscrupulous to obtain location information. In "Cybercasing the Joint: On the Privacy Implications of Geo-Tagging," Gerald Friedland of the International Computer Science Institute and Robin Sommer of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory argue that geotagging should never be automated.