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Cell Tracking on the Rise
An anonymous reader writes "ZDNet is reporting that with the recent advances in cell phone tracking tech more and more companies are using it to keep track of their employee's movements. From the article: 'The gains, say the converted, are many, ranging from knowing whether workers have been "held up" in the pub rather than in a traffic jam, to being able to quickly locate staff and reroute them if necessary. Not everybody is happy about being monitored, however, and civil rights group Liberty says the growth of tracking raises data privacy concerns.'"
Divert the calls from your employer's phone to your own phone and turn off your employer's phone.
if i was caught in the pub, but the benefits of this tech from other angles, such as finding missing people or giving people better directions have got to outweigh the ocasional reprimand for a quick half down the local.
Liberty should be spending their time on real problems. i think most people who own a mobile phone realise they can be (to some extent) tracked, and accept it. its not like we're being tagged, there is an element of choice in it.
-AlexC
At my current employment, I have refused receiving a company cell phone - I don't want my employer to reach me when I'm not at work! I CERTAINLY would not accept my employer tracking my movements! If the company I worked for implemented such a technology, I would quit - plain and simple.
If my employer has any reason to believe that I'm screwing him, he can damn well take it up with me, not play Big Brother.
SIG: TAKE OFF EVERY 'CAPTAIN'!!
Yes, But I'm [paid to be] on call sometimes. The problem then is - I'm not officially "working", (so I'd rather not have them know where I am) but I could be called upon to work (so need to have the phone on).
So the solution you outline is not universal.
Ha.
It's long been an absurd kabuki that the time you spend in commute is somehow 'your' time and, thus, unpaid. But, of course, who would sit in traffic in their true free time? Employers now show that they understand this dicotomy, this theft, perfectly well; they'll try to extert control over your unpaid time as if they somehow had bargained with you for it.
If employers are organized, so must employees be. Unions are the only solution.
I've heard--though I could be mistaken--that even turning your phone off won't help. I don't know why; I know that it doesn't make sense.. it just sticks out in my mind as "one of those things that I've heard". Probably better, in that it's more paranoid, to remove the SIM card when you don't want to be tracked, since that's what this technology relies on.
That won't help either! Each GSM phone has its own unique IMEI (International Mobile Equipment Identifier) number. Even if you remove your SIM card your phone can still access the network (you can use it for emergency call even if your SIM card is missing or invalid!) and it identifies itself by its IMEI. Roughly you can compare this to the hardware (MAC) address of your network adapter; even if you change your IP address, you can be tracked.
The only way for 100% security is removing the battery. If you live in the USA, your phone should exchange no information with the network when it's switched off - that the FCC regulation. But if you don't live in the USA, there simply might not be such requirement at all, check local laws that apply. Besides, if you are tin-foil-hat-paranoid, you don't really think "they" care about the FCC, do you? So remove the battery and don't waste your time to toy with a SIM card, as long as "they" know you use this particular mobile phone, "they" can still track you even if you feel secure with anonymous prepaid SIM card.
A woman was kidnapped from a Boston suburb 2 or 3 years ago, killed and her body driven to a remote site in NH and dumped. No evidence at the scene pointed to who did it, how or where they'e taken her. But her cellphone was still on. The time of the crime and roughly the route taken in its perpetration were established. The body, then the car and finally the cultprit were all found. You win some, you lose something. take your choice.
SLASHDOT: news for people who can't concentrate on work or have no life at all and got tired of yelling back at the TV.
I used to work for a company that used those little HID access cards. They had a system that could detect those cards in each room, so they knew where employees were at all times. Well, one week I had the flu, and since they denied my request for sick time, I was in the office, making frequent runs to the restroom (get it?). Later that week, my manager actually wrote me up because he had proof I was spending over an hour a day in the rest room, and accused me of being a goof off.
So, I resigned and immediately sued them. It turns out that a jury is very sympathetic when it comes to a company forcing a sick employee to come to work, even with a medical diagnosis of the flu and doctor orders to stay home. They are especially generous when it comes to a company actually writing someone up for trying to deal with the symptoms.
Of course, since they were a startup (what other kind of company would do something like that?), they didn't have enough cash for the settlement. They couldn't appeal because the local DA promised criminal charges if they did. Since they didn't have case, I settled for a majority stake in the company. I then sold it all to one of their competitors who took all of their IP and fired all of the executives, including the asshole who did that to me.
Think like an East German.
East German secret police, the Stasi used scandium-46 with hidden radiation detectors to identify and track dissidents.
West German deutschmark banknotes, documents, clothing and meeting rooms where heavily tagged.
New Scientist, January 3, 2001
http://www.leftwatch.com/archives/years/2001/00000 4.html
They also used to get your odour by rubbing it onto a piece of fabric. They would then have a jar with your fabric in it.
Trained dogs would then sniff you out.
Stasiland by Anna Funder
http://www.arlindo-correia.com/081203.html
In Capitalist west phone irradiates you.
In Communist East Germany you irradiate phone.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
It would be nice to have our cake and eat it too. If I was driving in bad weather and had an accident (such that I could not call for help), I'd love for my loved ones and emergency personnel to be able to find me. Similarly, If a business lives or dies by ultra-efficiency, it is always good to be able to re-route on-the-ground employees to handle business issues as quickly as possible - while not wasting the employee's time by having them call in/be called constantly to know where they are.
However, I strongly dislike the idea that one can be tracked without one's permission. It isn't a government's job to know where I am at all times. I also don't believe that governments need to track non-criminal activities just in case a person does something wrong.
Law enforcement has always walked a fine line between police state activities and protecting the greater good. What I don't know is how our politicians and law enforcement can necessarily handle telling the difference between the two...
A Passionate Independent Musician
Just travel to Thailand -- they'll reprogram your IMEI ("Imi" to them). It's a huge business because people there buy cheap phones in return for a 1-2 year contract, don't pay the contract and want to use the phone with a pre-paid SIM. The phone is locked out of the network, though, so these people go to have the IMEI changed through software. You would think that the PM would crack down on this, being the billionaire head of Shin Corp.
Interestingly, I have a cell phone from Thailand which I can't use in Korea, because the Korean phones don't use SIMs. If you want to buy a new pphone here, you have to get a new number, because it's hardcoded in the phone or something. I find it very strange.
Put identity in the browser.
The problem with that is unknowable consequences. Who will have access? Just because it is available to your boss doesn't mean it isn't available to others.
What then? Also, there may come a time when you need to do something and you don't want others to know where you are...like the free clinic for instance.
Privacy is just that, private, while I understand that the issue remains that work should be able to track you during work, what happens when the work day is done? Do you leave your "work" fone at work or do you take it home? Then what?
With this kind of technology, the ability to abuse it outweighs, to me anyway, its usefullness. Hire people you feel you can trust and fire the ones you can't. Much easier that way.
Just my nickle opinion.
Hmm....I wonder if you could claim that carrying a cell phone that tracked you was akin to "the mark of the beast", and could refuse to do so on religious grounds?
If they refused to hire or fired you on this basis...then you could sue the hell out of them for discrimination...
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........