There’s a “dark side” article on Location Based Services in Newsweek, reported here. I spotted it on W2Forum, which requires membership to see. Having said that, if youÌre interested in the mobile space, you should become a member. ItÌs free (if you ask me nicely) or you can pay up the GBP 200 if you prefer 
The gist is that services like employee and parental child tracking will creep in and before we know it, weÌll all be Geoslaves (great phrase, if somewhat melodramatic).
Sooner or later, though, it will dawn on us that information drawn from our movements has compromised our “locational privacy”Ûa term that may become familiar only when the quality it refers to is lost. “I don’t see much that will bring about [protections] in the short term,” says Mark Monmonier, author of “Spying With Maps.” He thinks that we’ll get serious about this only after we suffer some egregious privacy violations. But if nothing is done, pursuing our love affair with wireless will result in the loss of a hitherto unheralded freedomÛthe license to get lost. Here’s a new battle cry for the wireless era: Don’t Geo-Fence me in.
Much the same thing has happened with security cameras Ò no one asked the residents of London if they minded being filmed 300 times every day!
ThereÌs also a quote from one of the companies selling this technology:
“It they’re not in the right area, they’re really not working,” says Aligo CEO Robert Smith. “A notification will come to the back office that they’re not where they should be.”
He sounds a really motivating man to work for doesnÌt he? Do you think he makes his colleagues clock in and out to go to the bathroom and conducts full body searches before youÌre allowed home?
IÌd say that a company that feels that it needs to monitor its workers like this has some deep-routed personnel problems to solve before looking at this kind of technology. What happened to positives like motivation and trust? I’d recommend investing in a copy of one of Ricardo Semler’s books and having a long hard look at your organisation before buying into something like this.
Personally, I’ve always far preferred to pay my colleagues fees rather than wages anyway. In other words, I’ll pay for results, not their time. So if Colleague A can get better results than Colleague B in half the time, good for Colleague A! Why shouldn’t she go home early and work a 3 day week?
Having said that (before being accused of being a total Luddite) I can see that there can be huge business efficiency advantages. My point is just that to focus on the “checking up on the workers” aspects is not the real benefit of these systems.
And the tracking of kids? Anyone who has been a kid (and that makes most of us, I think) will know that kids will find a way round this one. If you’re meant to be studying with your mate Jimmy, guess where your phone will be, while you’re out partying and painting the town red?
This will also mean that there’ll be a rise in two-phone-ownership, as everyone knows that removing a teen’s phone is like removing their socialising gene.
Or maybe they’ll be a tech solution to beat the tracking systems? There’s already noise alibi’s so you can pretend you’re somewhere else. So location-alibiÌs doesnÌt seem that much of a stretch.
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