Our Changing Globe

If You Have A Cellphone In Your Pocket, Then Maybe You Are?!

Why Do Cellphone Companies Track Phones?

The reason that cellphone companies employ tracking devices is not as worrying as it might appear on first hearing, and it’s done in order to connect your phone to the nearest cell tower so that you can be located in case of emergency, and it’s a federally mandated feature called E9-1-1.

How Accurate Is The System?

Cellular providers can now pinpoint the location of a cellphone to within
150 feet (45 meters), and they’re improving on that all the time.

So What’s The Problem?

Well right now there isn’t a real problem and the tracking ability could turn out to be a life saver, but cellphone analyst Sascha Segan says, "At any moment, if your cell phone is on, your provider can tell where you are. Right now, they don’t store that bit of information, but if the government makes that a legal requirement, they might have to. They also don’t track your location when you’re not making calls, but they easily could. It’s technically feasible, and it’s not discussed in your cell phone contract. Contracts detail certain privacy regulations, but all are subject to government laws and regulations. A change in the law would supersede your contract".

But the F.B.I. Already Uses The Records

The question of legality was in fact discussed last Friday when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit in Philadelphia heard arguments in a case that centers around Philadelphia F.B.I. agent William Shute, who testified that he had obtained records 150 times in recent years to track the location of federal fugitives.

The Fourth Amendment which guards against illegal search and seizure was cited frequently in Friday’s case, but Dr. Abbe Forman, who is a professor and digital ethics expert with the computer and information science department at Temple University’s College of Science and Tech. noted that, "The right to privacy while implied in the Constitution, is not explicitly guaranteed".

The third U.S. Circuit Judge Dolores Sloviter did appear to be leaning in favor of The Electronic Frontier Foundation and the American Civil Liberties Union who argued in court Friday that the practice raises serious privacy issues.

"If we tell people they will be safer because they can be found in case of emergency, most people will look no further for information, even though the great majority of them will never be lost to that extreme. But can the government assure us that it will never try to find out these things?", she asked. "Don’t we have to be concerned about this? Not this government right now, but a government?.

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