Leslie Harris, president of the Center for Democracy and Technology, has an interesting op-ed on ABC News, “Do Device-Tracking Devices Really Enhance Our Lives?” (Here’s a previous op-ed by Harris about searches conducted by Customs and Border Protection. Read more about location privacy before.)

Today, millions of Americans willingly carry location devices with them everywhere. Everyday devices like cell phones and global positioning systems (GPS) make it easy for the government — as well as technology providers and advertisers — to track your real-time location or put together a full record of your whereabouts over time.

Location-aware devices provide many benefits to your safety, security and overall convenience. Location-enabled phones improve response time to 911 emergencies and built-in vehicle navigation systems, such as those from OnStar, can send the car’s GPS coordinates to emergency personnel. [...]

But for all its benefits, there is growing concern about just what is happening to the increasing amount of location information being collected by a variety of entities.

Of particular concern is the question of government access. A record of location can provide a detailed portrait of a person’s activities and associations. Yet the legal standards for government access to location data held by a range of third parties are unclear, at best. [...]

Now is the time to enact a baseline, technology-neutral, consumer privacy law.

This law would require companies that collect personal information to follow fair information practices, including providing consumers with clear and concise notice of collection and use policies, a meaningful choice about the use of their information, access to information held about them, and remedies for misuse. [...]

The legal standards for government access to both real-time and stored-location information remain unsettled and highly disputed. Rather than struggling to retrofit laws that were drafted before the digital age to today’s technologies, those laws need to be rewritten to ensure that our Fourth Amendment rights against government search and seizure still have meaning.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 28th, 2009 and is filed under Anonymity, Civil liberties, Fourth Amendment, Identification, Security, Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Possibly related posts:

• More on Apple iOS Devices and Tracking
• Kansas City Star: New Garmin tracking device raises privacy concern
• Providence Journal: R.I. governor vetoes bills limiting use of tracking devices