Neil Harding thinks I should be having nightmares over this article in the Graun by Ben Goldacre:
For the past week I’ve been tracking my girlfriend through her mobile phone. I can see exactly where she is, at any time of day or night, within 150 yards, as long as her phone is on. It has been very interesting to find out about her day. Now I’m going to tell you how I did it.
Oh, Ben, please, do! Please! Seeing as we’ve known all about this technology since… well, since radio telegraphy was invented pretty much. It’s called triangulation and you use basic radio direction finding principles. It’s how the Germans used to track the location of illicit resistance radios during WWII. Still, I suppose the Graun had to catch up sometime.
But back to business. First I had to get hold of her phone. It wasn’t difficult. We live together and she has no reason not to trust me, so she often leaves it lying around. And, after all, I only needed it for five minutes.
[…]
Almost immediately, my girlfriend’s phone vibrated with a new text message. “Ben Goldacre has requested to add you to their Buddy List! To accept, simply reply to this message with ‘LOCATE'”. I sent the requested reply. The phone vibrated again. A second text arrived: “WARNING: [this service] allows other people to know where you are. For your own safety make sure that you know who is locating you.” I deleted both these text messages.
Well, if Ben chooses to behave like a little shit, any system can be perverted in this way I suppose. However, Neil asks why I and NO2ID are not campaigning against this service:
This is definitely one to keep the anti-road tracking, NO2ID lot awake at night and this guy must be having serious nightmares.
As is usual Neil follows the line of reasoning that comparing apples with oranges makes some kind of sense. I pointed out in his comments that I am sleeping perfectly well – indeed, I get my full eight hours every night without a single nightmare. The reason NO2ID and people such as I who object to systematic mass surveillance by the government are not campaigning against World-Tracker and other similar services is because…
… wait for it…
This is not systematic mass surveillance carried out by the government. And, no one is tracking me. I know this because I have not received any notification text messages. Ah, but, I’m getting ahead of myself here. As The Register points out, the Groan article paints an unnecessarily black picture of the service on offer:
OUT-LAW spoke to World-Tracker today. It described a quite different service. A spokesman – who did not wish to be named – said the company follows an industry Code of Practice for the use of location data. He pointed out that a breach of the Ofcom-endorsed Code would result in the mobile networks withdrawing their services from World-Tracker.
An important step required by the Code was not mentioned in the Guardian article: it demands that periodic text messages are sent to the phone. According to World-Tracker’s spokesman, the company complies with this requirement in the Code.
As I understand it from Goldacre’s response to the Register article, World-Tracker can be tardy sending out the text messages, resulting in a period where people could be traced without their knowledge or consent before being deleted off the system by the person doing the tracking. Now that they know this, I would expect them to tighten up their systems. However, let’s bear in mind that what Goldacre did was illegal and in direct breach of the terms and conditions of the service.
“If Ben hadn’t obtained his girlfriend’s consent, he’d be breaking the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, better known as RIPA,” said Caskey. It is an offence under RIPA to intercept and delete someone else’s text message, she explained. “Such behaviour runs a risk of up to two years’ imprisonment and a fine.”
Personally, I have no qualms about a service that uses information in this manner – i.e. it is with the full knowledge and cooperation of those being tracked. Businesses have every right, should they wish, to have up to date information on the whereabouts of their equipment and employees. Given that lone workers may be vulnerable, there is an element of welfare being engaged in as well. The point, of course, is that this is all voluntary whereas proposals by government are compulsory. To those of us with an understanding of the English language, logic and reason, the difference is blindingly obvious. Also the profit motive that drives a private business concentrates the minds of the directors because it makes the business vulnerable to public outrage risk in the event of abuse or error; unlike government departments that really couldn’t care less because there is no penalty in the event of the inevitable incompetent cock-up. Ah, but, in Neil’s world “profit” is a dirty word.
To Neil, objection to government interference in our lives is summed up in his tags: “paranoid luddites”. Given that my mental health is fine and that I am a self confessed techno-geek, neither label is true. But, then, never let the truth get in the way of a good scare story, eh?