You make a good point. There is just so much fear-mongering about tracking people, or tracking vehicles, or tracking information. Someone reads 1984 or Fahrenheit 451 and suddenly feels sure that every new technology will be used for only evil purposes. Wrong! Every new technology will be used for benign AND evil purposes. OK, that's almost a joke. But really. There are just so many instances of lives saved, or at least protected, as a direct result of tracking technology. Wikipedia has a good summary of the tech at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GPS_tracking and these guys have a couple interesting news stories on how the gps tracking is reducing crime, recovering vehicles and saving dogs! No kidding. http://www.gpspolice.com/videos/ Point is, obviously personal tracking will be misused, but it will help people and save lives.
That's true. But tracking *things* has different implications than tracking *people*. When tracking something that is fairly disconnected from individuals, such as vehicle mileage, it's less intrusive than tracking people by, say, the cell phone (which is tracking a thing, but feels very much like an invasion of privacy to most). When you track somthing like purchasing habits, you are in a sense monitoring behaviour, which is getting closer to tracking the person, a la 1984.
But not all tracking is evil. I've been noticing an increasing number of cases where companyies' safety or productivity concerns with drivers leads to an adoption of GPS vehicle tracking in fleet vehicles. Employees first resist, then accept it as a fact of life (hey, they are company vehicles, what are you going to do?). But then something unexpected happens--company vehicle is stolen--and then gets recovered (along with the thief), in less than an hour. In such cases, no one complains about tracking, since it has benefitted the company, the employee (he can still work), and society (one less car thief to worry about). A couple interesting newscasts on such events: http://www.gpspolice.com/videos/ Oh yeah, and you gotta love that this potential "invasion of privacy" (vehicle tracking system) enables the one employee to get his [stolen] dog back....Smar
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You make a good point. There is just so much fear-mongering about tracking people, or tracking vehicles, or tracking information. Someone reads 1984 or Fahrenheit 451 and suddenly feels sure that every new technology will be used for only evil purposes. Wrong! Every new technology will be used for benign AND evil purposes. OK, that's almost a joke. But really. There are just so many instances of lives saved, or at least protected, as a direct result of tracking technology. Wikipedia has a good summary of the tech at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GPS_tracking and these guys have a couple interesting news stories on how the gps tracking is reducing crime, recovering vehicles and saving dogs! No kidding. http://www.gpspolice.com/videos/ Point is, obviously personal tracking will be misused, but it will help people and save lives.
That's true. But tracking *things* has different implications than tracking *people*. When tracking something that is fairly disconnected from individuals, such as vehicle mileage, it's less intrusive than tracking people by, say, the cell phone (which is tracking a thing, but feels very much like an invasion of privacy to most). When you track somthing like purchasing habits, you are in a sense monitoring behaviour, which is getting closer to tracking the person, a la 1984. But not all tracking is evil. I've been noticing an increasing number of cases where companyies' safety or productivity concerns with drivers leads to an adoption of GPS vehicle tracking in fleet vehicles. Employees first resist, then accept it as a fact of life (hey, they are company vehicles, what are you going to do?). But then something unexpected happens--company vehicle is stolen--and then gets recovered (along with the thief), in less than an hour. In such cases, no one complains about tracking, since it has benefitted the company, the employee (he can still work), and society (one less car thief to worry about). A couple interesting newscasts on such events: http://www.gpspolice.com/videos/ Oh yeah, and you gotta love that this potential "invasion of privacy" (vehicle tracking system) enables the one employee to get his [stolen] dog back. ...Smar