Slashdot Mirror
Cell Phones, Missing Persons, and Privacy
An anonymous reader sends in a Seattle PI story about the use of cell phone records in missing-person cases. Typically, phone companies turn over location information to police without a warrant if one of their customers is reported missing; the police need only to state that the person may be in danger. In any criminal case, a warrant from a judge would be required before the telcos divulged any information. While in some poster-child cases lives have been saved as a result of this practice, it seems like a class-action lawsuit waiting to happen. It is not a crime to go missing.
A while back I was programming a database solution that needed to synchronize across typically off-line locations. I was devising some sort of way to ensure that uids didn't collide. Someone suggested that I use uuids instead. My response at the time was something to the effect of: "this is a mission-critical system, uuids can still collide however rarely, I'd prefer a solution that guaranteed no collisions." I was greeted with a response to the effect of "yes uuids can collide. but it's much more likely that your three distinct locations will each get hit my a meteorite on the same day." Imperfect solutions are quite often more than good enough.
Now, if you want my mobile phone to guarantee my safety and security, you don't do it by tracking my location. You do it by having the device itself track my vital signs. When they reach a critical level, the device asks me if I'm sexually active or watching a scary movie. If I don't appease the device, then it calls the police/fire/ambulance/guardian/parent/nurse/child/neighbour/teacher for me -- a.k.a. a dead-man switch. You don't have the device ever listen to requests from the outside world. Ever. It's that simple.
When you say things like "your privacy is worthless when you're not breathing any longer", it's really easy to win an argument. But that's true only because it's a statement that presents no alternative scenarios. That's that propeganda works. You state something with an absolute truth, and then you have every following argument linked to the first by syntax, instead of semantics.
In this case, I have no reason to protect myself against getting lost. First, I don't get lost. Second, I live in a large very friendly city, with countless resources to someone who is lost. Third, I have the health to survive alone in the middle of no where for days without any permanent issues -- I'm not partially paralized, nor do I suffer from seizures nor even paranoia.
What you're asking me to do, what many opt to do, is to protect myself from something that is incredibly unlikely to occur. A good example that I often use for many things is walking. I've been walking for decades.
You know, I don't tend to trip and fall any more. I tihnk I've been walking without falling even once for the last ten years. I stumbled the other day, but recovered long before hitting the ground. But you know what, I may fall one day. And I may injure my knee in doing so. And it may never heal correctly. And I may wind up limping through the rest of my life. So clearly I should take steps (ha) to ensure that I am protected from such falls. Maybe I should were knee pads everywhere I go.
That's the kind of absolute argument that easily works with anything that isn't ridiculous to begin with. I wouldn't have a limp forever because I've got the money for physical therapy. My knee would heal correctly because I live in a city with incredible hospitals and health-care all for free -- err, included with citizenship. If I do fall, odds are that I won't injure my knee to any real degree. And I'm not likely to fall in the first place.
Is it worth $1.50 plus tax to protect each of my knees from life-long injury? For me, now, here, no. It's not worth $1.50 plus tax to protect my knee at the cost of having to wear even the lightest and thinnest knee pad everywhere I go. Now, if I were a hockey player, who falls about three times in a 45-second shift, then yeah the knee pad becomes crucial.
For me, there are better ways to allocate resources. And the freedom to allow my knee to breathe, and to walk around with a little bit more comfort, is worth a lot more than protecting the knee from something that isn't likely to happen.
Back to my old discussion about insurance, there will come a day when an insurance company will simply offer to ensure every second of your life -- car, home, theft, life, property, it's all the same. Every single second of your life would be covered. It's the glorious undo buffer to get money back