[huridocs-tech] Your cellphone is keeping tabs

The New York Times
Published: December 21, 2003

Lost? Hiding? Your Cellphone Is Keeping Tabs
By AMY HARMON


On the train returning to Armonk, N.Y., from a recent shopping trip
in Manhattan with her friends, Britney Lutz, 15, had the odd
sensation that her father was watching her.

He very well could have been. Ms. Lutz's father, Kerry, recently
equipped his daughters with cellular phones that let him see where
they are on a computer map at any given moment. Earlier that day, he
had tracked Britney as she arrived in Grand Central Terminal. Later,
calling up the map on his own cellphone screen, he noticed she was in
SoHo.

Mr. Lutz did not happen to be checking when Britney developed pangs
of guilt for taking a train home later than she was supposed to, but
the system worked just as he had hoped: she volunteered the
information that evening.

"Before, they might not have told me the truth, but now I know
they're going to," said Mr. Lutz, 46, a lawyer who has been
particularly protective of Britney and her sister, Chelsea, 17, since
his wife died several years ago. "They know I care. And they know I'm
watching."

Driven by worries about safety, the need for accountability, and
perhaps a certain "I Spy" impulse, families and employers are
adopting surveillance technology once used mostly to track soldiers
and prisoners. New electronic services with names like uLocate and
Wherify Wireless make a very personal piece of information for
cellphone users - physical location - harder to mask.

But privacy advocates say the lack of legal clarity about who can
gain access to location information poses a serious risk. And some
users say the technology threatens an everyday autonomy that is
largely taken for granted. The devices, they say, promote the
scrutiny of small decisions - where to have lunch, when to take a
break, how fast to drive - rather than general accountability.

"It's like a weird thought I get sometimes, like `he definitely knows
where I am right now, and he's looking to see if I'm somewhere he
might not approve of,' " said Britney Lutz. "I wonder what it will be
like when I start to drive."

Still, personal location devices are beginning to catch on, largely
because cellular phones are increasingly coming with a built-in
tether. A federal mandate that wireless carriers be able to locate
callers who dial 911 automatically by late 2005 means that millions
of phones already keep track of their owners' whereabouts. Analysts
predict that as many as 42 million Americans will be using some form
of "location-aware" technology in 2005.

Wireless companies and start-up firms are weaving the satellite
system known as G.P.S., or Global Positioning System, which was begun
by the United States military in the 1970's, into the cellular phone
network and the Internet to sell products and services that provide
location information.

After fixing an individual's location relative to a network of G.P.S.
satellites orbiting 12,000 miles above the earth - or, more crudely,
by the time it takes signals to bounce off nearby cell towers -
personal locator services transmit the constantly updated information
to a central database, where customers can retrieve it through the
Internet, telephone or pager.

Until recently, one of the main civilian uses of G.P.S. was in
devices issued by the criminal justice system to track offenders as a
condition of their parole or probation. The new generation of
tracking devices has moved well beyond that population and now takes
many forms, from plastic bracelets that can be locked onto children
to small boxes with tiny antennae that can be placed unobtrusively in
cars.

"We are moving into a world where your location is going to be known
at all times by some electronic device," said Larry Smarr, director
of the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information
Technology. "It's inevitable. So we should be talking about its
consequences before it's too late."

Some of those consequences have not been spelled out. Will federal
investigators be allowed to retrieve information on your recent
whereabouts from a private service like uLocate, or your cellular
carrier? Can the local Starbucks store send advertisements to your
phone when it knows you are nearby, without your explicit permission?

Because the new electronic surveillance services are still in their
infancy, there are few answers, but the debate over the boundaries of
privacy in a more transparent world is already taking shape.
Teenagers in particular tend to be skeptical of the new technology's
value.

"Cellphones would lose their appeal if they became tracking devices,"
said Nate Bingham, 16, of Seattle. "I think if your parents really
care that much they should just put a leash on you."

Mr. Bingham's parents use an AT&T service called Find Friend that
lets them see his general location when his cellphone is on, based on
the company's nearest cellular tower. He said his mother had at times
asked him where he was and then used the service to see if he was
telling the truth. He admits to turning the phone off occasionally
when he doesn't want to be found.

That won't work in the Pratt household, in Garden City, N.Y., where
Jason, 13, and Ashley, 11, were given new Nextel cellphones on the
condition that they be kept on at all times. With uLocate, Tom Pratt
set up his account on the company's Web site to establish a
"geofence" around his home and his children's school. Every time the
kids leave a 400-foot radius of either place, he gets an automatic
e-mail alert: "Ashley has exited Home at 08:18 AM," read a typical
message last week.

Jason Pratt said there were advantages to being watched. He no longer
has to call his mother to let her know where he is. Instead, she can
press a "locate" button on her phone and see for herself. So long as
Jason's phone is running the uLocate software, it transmits his
location information every two minutes. Jason's 17-year-old brother,
Matthew, however, kept his older cellphone - even though it had poor
reception - rather than submit to the new deal.

Howard Boyle, president of a fire sprinkler installation company in
Woodside, N.Y., presented his employees with no such choice. The five
workers who have been given company phones with the G.P.S. feature
have not been told that Mr. Boyle can find out if they have arrived
at a work site, and whether they are walking around in it or sitting
still.

"They don't need to know," said Mr. Boyle, who hopes the service will
help him determine the truth when clients claim they are being
overbilled for the time his employees spent at their location. "I can
call them and say, `Where are you now?' while I'm looking at the
screen and knowing exactly where they are, just to make sure they're
not telling me they're somewhere else."

But it is not just the unnerving effect of uncovering small lies that
has some users of the technology worried. Like caller I.D., location
devices lift the curtain on a zone of privacy that many Americans
value, even if they rarely have anything serious to hide.

"Think back to when you were a teenager and your mom or dad said, `I
don't want you to do this,' and you said, `yeah, yeah, yeah,' because
you knew you could do it and they wouldn't know," said Graham Clarke,
president of National Scientific, which makes several G.P.S. tracking
devices. "Those days are gone now, because they actually can know."

Mr. Clarke recently installed a tracking device called Followit in
the Jeep Wrangler of his 17-year-old son, Gordon. It alerts him if
Gordon has exceeded 60 m.p.h. or traveled beyond preset boundaries.

Advocates of location-aware technology insist that its safety
benefits - like locating a 911 caller or a stolen car - outweigh the
privacy issues.

And for Donna Phillips, 66, whose husband, Hubie, has Alzheimer's
disease, the ability to lock a G.P.S.-enabled bracelet from Wherify
Wireless around Mr. Phillips's fanny pack when he goes out has meant
an end to panicked searches when he fails to come home. Now her
granddaughter can help her find her husband on the Wherify Wireless
Web site, which displays the location information transmitted from
the bracelet when an authorized user logs on.

About two weeks ago, Mr. Phillips, 90, boarded a bus near his home in
Rancho Park, Calif., and traveled several miles before switching to
another bus. Because he was moving too fast for his wife to catch up,
she called the police, who were able to pinpoint his location through
the Wherify Wireless service to pick him up.

Critics of the new technology do not dispute its usefulness, but
worry that it will become ubiquitous before legal guidelines are
established.

Last year, the Federal Communications Commission turned down a
request from the cellular phone industry's association and privacy
groups for guidance on such matters. For the moment, the questions of
trust and tracking are being raised largely in the sphere of family
and personal relationships, rather than in the public arenas of
government and business.

Jerold Surdahl, 40, an administrator in a building management office
in Centerville, Ohio, said he started using the uLocate service to
communicate with colleagues. Now, he is intrigued by the possibility
of stashing a location-tracking phone in the trunk of his wife's car.

"I'm not expecting or hoping or wanting to find something, but I
would just like to explore the possibilities," Mr. Surdahl said. "I'd
tell her about it later."

o o o o o o

[SEE Related information]

uLocate Communications, Inc.
Profile
uLocate Communications, Inc. (www.ulocate.com) is an application and
technology service provider of location-based services. uLocate
integrates GPS enabled cell phone technology with the convenience of
the Internet to provide global, real-time tracking and associated LBS
services for both enterprise applications and personal use. Based in
Newton, Mass., the company operates web sites at addressbook.com and
ulocate.com.


Contact Information
Web Site:	http://www.ulocate.com
Email Address:
Phone:	617-558-6739
Fax:
Address:	10 Langley Road

Newton, MA 02459
USA



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