[IP] more on Getting consumers' consent to sell cellphone tracking data
Begin forwarded message:
From: Tom Goltz <tgoltz@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: November 30, 2005 3:55:50 PM EST
To: "Richard M. Smith" <rms@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: dave@xxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [IP] [EPIC_IDOF] Getting consumers' consent to sell
cellphone tracking data
At 02:25 PM 11/30/2005, you wrote:
I want to see a requirement put into place that wireless companies
must get a customer's written consent before any of their
cellphone position
data is turned over to a third-party for any uses not related to
making
cellphone calls.
It's likely that these traffic monitoring systems can and are being
implemented without any direct input from the cellular carriers. You
can actually gather quite a bit of information about traffic volume
and speed by simply setting up a receiver beside the highway and
measuring the number of distinct signals that you hear, and the
length of time that each uniquely identifiable signal is in range of
a given receiver. This system has definite privacy implications, but
these are going to need to be addressed by the operators of the
receivers (the local government) rather than with the cellular carriers.
The only way the cellular carriers could prevent this kind of passive
use of cellular transmissions would be to fully encrypt ALL
communications between the phone and the tower. Given the computing
requirements for strong encryption and the need to replace ALL the
customer-owned cellular handsets, this is unlikely to happen in the
foreseeable future.
I'd personally settle for the carriers being willing to disclose when
and if they can obtain tracking information from E911-capable
handsets. I have yet to find an E911 location-capable handset that
offers the owner ANY control over how and when the phone transmits
location information.
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