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Indian Government To Track Locations of All Cell Phone Users
asto21 writes with this excerpt from The Indian Express: "As per amendments made to operators' licences, beginning May 31, operators would have to provide the Department of Telecommunications real-time details of users' locations in latitudes and longitudes. Documents obtained by The Indian Express show that details shall initially be provided for mobile numbers specified by the government. Within three years, service providers will have to provide information on locations of all users. The information will have some margin of error at first. But by 2013, at least 60 per cent of the calls in urban areas would have to be accurately tracked when made 100 metres away from the nearest cell tower. By 2014, the government will seek to increase the proportion to 75 per cent in cities and 50 per cent in suburban and rural areas."
2002: laws passes making GPS mandatory in all phones made and sold after 2005. It is done, we are told, to Make Us All Safe, so that you can dial 911.
I post that it is for tracking. People tell me that I'm paranoid, that you can shut it off, that no one cares where we are.
Turns out you can't shut off tracking, that phones will not work if you manage to disable GPS tracking.
This is ignored when commented on.
Turns out that they can turn GPS on when they want to, without you knowing, of course.
People tell me, oh, so what, no one cares where you are.
Now it it turns out, they want it on all the time, you can't turn it off, and of course they care very much where we all are. It's a tautology: they track us because they can, no other reason necessary. Power wants more power.
And people tell me privacy doesn't matter anymore, that no one cares. Of course, the people who shoved this down our throats are not tracked; Wikileaks and Assange show us what happens when the powerful are tracked & outed. We don't even know who "they" are. But they sure get what they want.
Now they want to "save us money" by tracking our cars with GPS and providing that data to insurance companies, who of course have nothing but our welfare in mind. But, privacy is dead, it'll save us money, I'm a luddite...
The end result, so painfully, infuriatingly obvious ten years ago, is that you will not be able to move around with a phone, take a train, or a plane, or an automobile without you every move precisely recorded. Such tracking does not apply to the actual shadowy trackers, whom we can't even name without going to jail.
Freedom without anonymity is impossible. That's why those who ordered this and who use this have no names and no locations. The power is all one-way. If you can't anonymously speak or move around, you are a prisoner, no matter how pretty your cage is.