Dodgeball GPS

Justin Davies [2006-04-12 05:04 AM]

Nat, this is something I have been banging my head against the wall about for the past 18 months.

There is a lot of innovative things that can be done when real locative information can be found from the handset.

There are some things, like attaining the CELL ID of the mobile and matching this with a know longitude and latitude (which we will be working on with the release of the Series 60 v3 devices), but even that is a long way off as you need the locative information to get the pairing in the first place.

The other major issue is portability. BuddyPing could quite easily get true location information in the UK, but the way we get that information is on an operator by operator, country by country basis.

One day!

Justin

seong [2006-04-13 11:47 AM]

I think the SMS-based approach is going to be the reality for a while longer. Besides the issue of cost to the consumer & lack of penetration, you also have privacy issues with anything that automatically tracks your location in some way. Even if you came up with clever ways to let users opt-in for location tracking, you'd still have to fight images of Big Brother with consumers. From a user privacy p.o.v., SMS's other advantage is that everything is clearly user-initiated.

Amir [2006-04-16 12:35 PM]

What about GPS tracking for the purpose of saving the lives of wandering Alzheimer's patients? What are your thoughts regarding privacy on this issue? I am working in this area as a start-up company and would love to hear your thoughts on the subject.

gnat [2006-04-17 03:15 AM]

Amir, I think it's a tricky issue and the only way to find out whether our culture will accept the tracking of the mentally ill, the infirm, the young, etc. is to try to do it and see. Reactions to technology can't be reliably predicted--some things sound objectionable until the technology makes them so seductive/useful/easy that they are now accepted without a second thought (looking at a phone during a conversation is undergoing just such a change). No easy answer, sorry!

From a callow PR point of view, the best counter to objections of invasion of privacy is a set of true case studies showing the dangers that were averted ("Patient X was wandering toward traffic when the system alerted his minder and ..."). This is because humans are lousy at balancing abstract cautions against real world benefits.

The testing cases for privacy come not when lives are saved but when adultery is inadvertently discovered or when an abusive parent finds their shelter-seeking child. Because we're ultimately irrational creatures, unable to balance saving an unknown number of Alzheimer lives against unquantifiable damage to unknown number of abused children, your empirical test of society's tolerance for the new powers of technology will be the only way to figure out whether out which negatives we'll live with. The sad part is that it might come down to which outcome happens first.

--Nat

David [2006-04-27 03:53 PM]

I'd like to add Amir and Nat's posts regarding GPS and issues of privacy for locating those who are wander prone due to dementia-type disorders. Project Lifesaver, www.projectlifesaver.org, is a public safety program that uses electronic tracking technology to locate missing persons. Project Lifesaver is run by first responders (police and sheriff dept's) who are legally obligated to locate missing persons. In the past five years, Project Lifesaver agencies has located 1286 people with Alzhiemer's, Autism, and Down Syndrome. There nearly 500 police and sheriff agencies in the US and Canada. This program uses FCC approved 215 MHz direct VHF transmitter to reciever technology.
VHF tracking technology might not be as cool as GPS, but it works for locating wanderers. Compared to GPS, VHF used by Project Lifesaver is less complex since since it does not rely cellular networks and/or internet connections to get GPS coordinates back to the care providers.
About the issue of privacy with VHF transmitters and Project Lifesaver - the police only track people who have wandered in the first place. In other words, if you're not missing, the police aren't looking for you.
Regards, David