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Why Uber Can Find You but 911 Can't (wsj.com)
Accurate location data is on smartphones, so why don't more wireless carriers use it to locate emergency callers? From a report, shared by a reader: Software on Apple's iPhones and Google's Android smartphones help mobile apps like Uber and Facebook to pinpoint a user's location, making it possible to order a car, check in at a local restaurant or receive targeted advertising. But 911, with a far more pressing purpose, is stuck in the past. U.S. regulators estimate as many as 10,000 lives could be saved each year if the 911 emergency dispatching system were able to get to callers one minute faster. Better technology would be especially helpful, regulators say, when a caller can't speak or identify his or her location. After years of pressure, wireless carriers and Silicon Valley companies are finally starting to work together to solve the problem. But progress has been slow. Roughly 80% of the 240 million calls to 911 each year are made using cellphones, according to a trade group that represents first responders. For landlines, the system shows a telephone's exact address. But it can register only an estimated location, sometimes hundreds of yards wide, from a cellphone call. That frustration is now a frequent source of tension during 911 calls, said Colleen Eyman, who oversees 911 services in Arvada, Colo., just outside Denver.
Admittedly posting this having only read the headline, but the answer is obvious:
Because people apparently trust corporations like Uber, Facebook, etc. with all kinds of sensitive data, but for God's sake don't trust the government with the time of day!
the $1.99 "911/emergency service" fee your cell company charges is mandated by state law, and was originally set up to fund 911 call centers. they largely came about after the 9/11 terrorist attacks to help modernize radio systems. after the 2008 housing collapse and recession, most states just redirected the 911 fee to the general fund out of sheer desparation to keep the wheels on the late-stage capitalism bus fueled by the fumes of corporate tax dodging and globalist outsourcing.
Good people go to bed earlier.
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Because at the end of the day I can uninstall Uber but once the government mandates phone tracking for safety they'll know where you are forever for whatever reason they want.
They don't have to track your phone unless you dial 911. This is baseless FUD. Uber doesn't need your location unless you call for Uber. It is a trivial exercise to prevent either Uber or the government from receiving location data unless you contact.
If the government starts proposing a law to track you at all times then by all means get worked up about it. (yes that includes the NSA) That's a very different discussion. If I'm calling 911 I WANT them to have an accurate fix on my location. This should be a non issue. Fears about government overreach in this case are misplaced and demonstrably costs lives.
If you used a phone with a proper permission system, you'd know you were giving permission for location data, or you're willfully ignorant (didn't read the prompt), and who the fuck cares what happens to willfully-ignorant people?
On infrastructure. We just took on $1.5 trillion in debt to do a bunch of tax cuts. If we want these things we have to pay for them.
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The underlying problem is https://apps.fcc.gov/edocs_pub... . As best I can tell, those were the new standards for E911 location precision from 2015, which completely screwed up the working E911 system by requiring more precision than was physically possible with the existing, stable system from TruePosition, in use by most cell phone vendors. That system involved bolting hardware onto the cell phone towers, hardware that worked pretty well. They had a nice display of the system that survived the 9/11 bombings and helped provide location date to rescuers, including people who were underground in places with the doors covered with rubble.
Sadly, the updated regulations required even more accuracy. The cell phone companies are now pursuing "evaluation" projects for independent systems, none of which work. And Trueposition is *gone*. They got absorbed into a locaiton company called Skyhook, but kept their old management that failed to keep them intact. They're supporting only a few legacy systems E911 systems, and have since had two rounds of layoffs.
It should be possible to use other location systems, such as Skyhook's or Google maps or iPhone recovery tools to make some working location services for E911. Even Wayz would be a starting point. Getting the companies to play well with the data, or allow sharing of that data just for emergency services, is a software integration problem and an ethical morass due to privacy concerns.
Uber and Lyft get your location information, tied to your cell phone, when you look at the map to get the price of the ride.
So they get your location when you use their app which you have to explicitly allow. I fail to see the problem. It is trivial to restrict 911 services to not worrying about your location unless you dial 911. Stop looking for problems where they don't exist.
I'd like to point out the "First they came" message, about creeping government power and abuses?
Knock yourself out but if that is the basis of your argument against good location identification for 911 then you have no argument. Worse you are arguing that people should die because you have a hypothetical concern about 911 location information being used for something other than an emergency response despite there being no evidence that such activity is or will occur. Seriously take off the tinfoil hat. There are plenty of places to worry about government overreach. This is clearly not one of them.
I pray you don't have a heart attack and need 911 tell first responders how to find you in a hurry.
They don't have to, but based on past behavior, they will.
Take off the tinfoil hat please.
What makes you think the NSA or any of the other three-letter agencies will bother with a law?
So we're supposed to live with shitty 911 service because you are paranoid about the NSA breaking the law? Newsflash dummy, they can already track your phone so all you are doing is costing lives to improve NOTHING. You aren't improving your privacy by slowing first responders. If the NSA wants to break the law, handicapping 911 service won't stop them from watching you legally or illegally. It just means a guy having a heart attack will die when he didn't have to.