Research Note no. 60 2003–04
Where are you now? Location detection systems and personal privacy
Matthew James
Science, Technology, Environment and Resources Section
15 June 2004
Big Brother watches
The spectre of Big Brother from George Orwell’s 1984
watching our every move has been steadily realised. The growth in video
camera surveillance and in information systems has prompted claims of
invasion of privacy. New location detection systems and electronic tags
now offer ways to monitor personal behaviour as never before. This note
looks at the new technologies.
The tracking of motor vehicles has become a commonplace
business for both logistical and security reasons. There are also now
devices available for parents to monitor car speed, acceleration and seat
belt use by their offspring, broadcast by mobile phone to a home computer(1).
Drivers can navigate using other location systems.
Road authorities can use signals from mobile telephone towers to track
motorists and monitor congestion.
Meanwhile, a debate continues over the extent to which
individual vehicles should be monitored for speeding fines and road pricing
purposes. The future use of Radio Frequency Identification Data (RFID;
see over) toll tags may eventually enable cost-effective monitoring of
road traffic networks by police authorities.
However, there remain questions about the community’s
willingness to accept this degree of movement tracking. Already in Britain,
speed cameras have been targets for destruction by aggrieved motorists,
with some media disquiet here too.
More recently, tracking systems have been used to monitor
prisoners on home detention. These can trip a detection alarm should the
wearer leave home, or contain a device to transmit to a Global Positioning
System monitored in the local area.
Parents of straying children can use a tracking device
that clips on to a belt, along with a website at home, to monitor their
child’s movements. The device has a panic button for the child to push
as required and allows for receipt of text messages. Another new security
tag helps stop the theft of babies from hospitals by means of a monitoring
alarm alert.
These technologies primarily allow the tracking of
people’s physical location. But newer tag systems could link this to personal
habits, preferences and financial details. Personal financial transactions
do already reveal our spending choices and where we do our business or
undertake an electronic transaction.
Mobile telephone developments
Location-based computing using wireless systems is
a growth industry. The concept involves the use of mobile telephones,
personal digital assistants and other accessories capable of tracking
their owner’s every movement around town.
In Europe, new mobile telephone networks can locate
their users and provide directions as required. The degree of accuracy
and consistency of application in the new standards now evolving do vary
however. It will take time to resolve them all.
The Global Positioning System (GPS) utilises defence
satellite location systems combined with local repeater stations to enable
persons with portable receivers to locate themselves to within a few metres.
Such assisted GPS might be linked to mobile telephone cell referencing
systems to improve location detecting performance.
However, once indoors, the tracking technology becomes
less reliable, due to wall, floor and ceiling panel interference. It could
be that a new combination of wireless and ultra-wideband technologies
may enable personal tracking within structures.
Emergency call location
Australia’s telecommunications carriers may introduce
even more accurate location detection systems to improve responses to
mobile phone calls for emergencies. There are cell triangulation techniques
that allow authorities to determine the location of mobile phone users.
In the United States, the Federal Communications Commission
has mandated that mobile telephone carriers be able to automatically locate
anyone making an emergency call to within 50 to 150 metres, by 2006. Carriers
might also be able to provide security alerts or weather bulletins to
telephone users.
The Australian Communications Authority is currently
examining this issue, but expects carriers to introduce tracking technologies
for commercial reasons.(2) Location technologies may be handset-based,
network-based or a combination.
Commercial applications might include roadside assistance,
map aids, location-based billing, news and information services, as well
as advertising of course. While there are practical benefits of helping
lost or stranded people, the systems may also be used as marketing tools,
directing people to specific commercial outlets.
RFID
Radio Frequency Identification Data (RFID) tags are
tiny silicon chips that broadcast a unique identification code, when queried
by a reader device using radio waves. At present, they can return such
a signal from distances up to a few tens of metres depending on the communicating
frequencies and transmitting powers involved. The tags may be as small
as rice grains, positioned within ID cards, tokens, wristbands, or even
under the skin, as in the use of microchips for pets.
RFID tags are now small and unobtrusive enough to allow
their adoption in many applications, but may still be too costly for wide-spread
applications. There is a range of proposed standards. Note that the emitted
power levels from the tags are too low to be of concern about harmful
radiation levels.
Warehouses and retailers use RFID tags to monitor stock
movements. Casinos might use them embedded within gaming chips in order
to spot thefts and counterfeits, as well as to monitor gambler behaviour.
The tagging of airline luggage labels and banknotes is also a possibility.
Manufacturers and shop owners prefer tags to barcodes
because the tags uniquely label individual items, rather than just product
types, and because they can be read remotely and, theoretically, in high
volume.(3)
One possible application for retail RFID tags would
be to send offers to consumers who purchased goods, either by telephone
or electronic mail. However, the degree of information overload involved
in tracking goods and linking them to consumers might well prove to be
a data processing nightmare.
RFID characteristics
RFID tags are categorized as either active or passive.
A passive tag, with no power source, can be activated by a reader device
that transmits an energy signal to the tag. The tags themselves consist
of antennae connected to a silicon chip. Active RFID tags are powered
by an internal battery and are typically read/write, i.e., tag data can
be rewritten and/or modified.
Passive tags are consequently much lighter than active
tags, less expensive, and may offer a virtually unlimited operational
lifetime. The trade off is that they have shorter read ranges than active
tags and require a higher-powered reader.
Technical challenges face RFID use. The tags can be
orientation-dependent, requiring multiple reader systems. RFID signals
may be easily blocked by common objects and other radio waves.
Privacy implications
Federal privacy law under the Privacy Act 1988
and the eleven Information Privacy Principles do not appear to directly
address the matter of personal location tracking. Personal identity information
and an individual’s right to control it might both be compromised by the
new systems. Some issues include:
- Does it matter if one can not be located in real time?
- Is the device or its owner being located?
- How, if at all, is this information utilised?(4)
The possible linking of RFID tags on purchased items
to personal credit card details and transaction trails raises privacy
concerns.
Possible rules for the use of RFID tags on consumer
products include:
- Consumer notification of RFID tags, on purchase;
- Tags able to be easily removed by consumers;
- Tags able to be disabled by default; and
- Tags placed only within packaging not the product.(5)
Do we all desire others to always know where we are
located at any time? Should users always be in control of giving out personally
identifiable information? One thing is for sure: Big Brother could be
watching and tracking us all in the years to come. This raises specific
privacy issues, as well as matters of ethics, law, technology and the
kind of society that we want to create.
- www.findafone.com.au
- Australian Communications Authority, Location, Location, Location,
ACA Discussion Paper, Canberra, January 2004.
- D. Crowe & S. Mitchell, ‘Cost and privacy will be the big issues’,
Australian Financial Review, 18 May 2004, p. 34.
- H. Fraser,‘Location based services and privacy: can they co-exist?’,
Telemedia, 5(5), 2001, pp. 77–80.
- R. Want, ‘RFID: A Key to Automating Everything’, Scientific American,
January 2004, pp. 46–55.
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