A glimpse into the not-too-distant future . . .
You’re driving along the highway. There is only light traffic on the road, and there’s not a cop in sight. You decide to give in to that dastardly rebel within and go 10 miles over the speed limit. You get to your destination without incident, a few minutes early. The sun is shining in the sky; there’s not a cloud in sight. It’s a happy day. Life is good.
But then a few weeks later, you discover that the day wasn’t as cheery as you had thought. That’s because you were caught for speeding that day. Your ticket arrives in the mail. But there were no police officers along the route, no speed traps, no surveillance cameras. How did you get caught?
You were ratted out, betrayed by a traitor in your car. No, not a secret agent, not a rat, not a mole. Instead, it was something you trusted the most, an inseparable companion . . . it was your cell phone.
According to the AP [link no longer avilable]:
Driving to work with your cell phone on, you notice the traffic beginning to slow down. Instantly and unbeknown to you, the government senses your delay and flashes a traffic congestion update over Web sites and electronic road signs.
Other motorists take heed, diverting to alternative routes or allowing more time for their trips.
Futuristic as it might seem, the scenario actually is pretty close to becoming reality.
In what would be the largest project of its kind, the Missouri Department of Transportation is negotiating with private contractors to monitor thousands of cell phones, using their movements to produce real-time traffic conditions on 5,500 miles of roads statewide.
Cell phone users won’t even know anyone’s watching them. But transportation and technology leaders assure there is no need to worry – the data will remain anonymous, leaving no possibility of tracking specific people from their driveway to their destination.
I have a quote in the story, but I’m not saying anything really profound, so I won’t bother excerpting it.
Since there is no tracking that can be linked to identifiable people, the cell phone tracking described by the article appears to pose little of a privacy concern. However, it isn’t too hard to imagine in the future new ways that these devices can be used. Previously, I blogged about how cell phones can function as an RFID device to track people’s movement. With the technology described in the AP article, it doesn’t seem far-fetched to imagine cell phones being used to determine a driver’s rate of speed. Would there be a problem if cell phones were used as a way to nab speeders?
This raises another question regarding the enforcement of the law. When we devise ways to more perfectly enforce laws such as speeding, is this desirable? To keep this post from getting too long, I will explore this question in a separate post.
Originally posted at Concurring Opinions
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This post was authored by Professor Daniel J. Solove, who through TeachPrivacy develops computer-based privacy training, data security training, HIPAA training, and many other forms of awareness training on privacy and security topics. Professor Solove also posts at his blog at LinkedIn. His blog has more than 1 million followers.
Professor Solove is the organizer, along with Paul Schwartz, of the Privacy + Security Forum and International Privacy + Security Forum, annual events designed for seasoned professionals.
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