[IP] Request: Check your cell phone to see if it's always transmitting your location [priv]
Begin forwarded message:
From: Declan McCullagh <declan@xxxxxxxx>
Date: September 21, 2005 6:22:26 PM EDT
To: politech@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [Politech] Request: Check your cell phone to see if it's
always transmitting your location [priv]
Related Politech message:
http://www.politechbot.com/p-05008.html
And a column I wrote on this a while ago:
http://news.com.com/2010-1071_3-5064829.html
-Declan
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Always-on location tracking in cellphones
Date: Wed, 21 Sep 2005 18:04:30 -0400
From: Richard M. Smith <rms@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: 'Declan McCullagh' <declan@xxxxxxxx>
Hi Declan,
We have talked before about the FCC mandate which is requiring all U.S.
wireless carriers to provide location information to emergency operators
accurate to about 150 feet on all 911 calls as part of the Enhanced 911
program (http://www.fcc.gov/911/enhanced/). To meet this FCC
mandate, my
Verizon Wireless Treo 650 cellphone includes some kind of GPS tracking
technology. The Treo also has an option to select if location
information
is sent in to Verizon for all calls or only 911 calls.
I was a bit surprised to learn that my Treo defaults to always sending
location information. After a bit of initial confusion, I got
confirmation
from both Palm and Verizon Wireless that my observation about the
default
was correct. However, Verizon Wireless told me this is a mistake and
going
forward, they plan to change the default to "911 calls only".
I'm curious now when other models of cellphones transmit location
information to carriers. Can folks on Politech check their
cellphones and
phone manuals to see what kind of controls there are over location
information and send me the results? I'll also need the make and
model of
the phone and the wireless carrier.
For my Treo phone, I found the location option under "Phone
Preferences" in
the Options menu of the main phone screen.
Thanks,
Richard M. Smith
http://www.ComputerBytesMan.com
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