Google has been called Big Brother so many times, you’d think that the Big G would be synonymous with another “big g”. So now that Google has a way of not only knowing if you are thinking naughty or nice things, but where you are as well, people are starting to invest in even more tin foil garments. Some of those people are getting their fuel from Privacy International who released a statement about what the can of worms that it believes that Google has opened up given these 5 scenarios:
- An employer provides staff with Latitude-enabled phones on which a reciprocal sharing agreement has been enabled, but does not inform staff of this action or that their movements will be tracked.
- A parent gifts a mobile phone to a child without disclosing that the phone has been Latitude-enabled.
- A partner, friend or other person gains access to an unattended phone (left on a bar on in the house) and enables Latitude without the other person’s knowledge.
- A Latitude-enabled phone is given as a gift.
- A phone left unattended, for example with security personnel or a repair shop, is covertly enabled.
To me, at first blush, this seems to be to be one of those things that are really silly… these are the same things that can happen to any computing device that the user “leaves wide open” or gets as a preconfigured gift. The “no-good-nicks” that they identify are just as likely going to be breaking laws as misusing a tool. But they do raise a good point, there should be some manner of notification on the device that the service is operating. On smart phones, this might be done really easily – another notifation icon like BlueTooth/Wifi/New Messages. But for those people who don’t have the phone out of their personal space for more time than it takes to shower, this might be a good thing as well – just a reminder that the service is indeed working. I seem not to be the only one thinking along these lines – Micheal Zimmer has a similar post.
I think it would be cool that if Google is using the data for anything, it would be for charting traffic flow in cities or during events. If they could have an “opt in” for a project like that, I’m sure they would suddenly see many more users who would then be able to Google things like – wait time on “route X”, time in line at NE WC on 2nd level ZXC Stadium, and the list goes on.
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