Today, almost all of the smart devices we use for internet, communication and transportation have the capability to determine our location and to record those locations continuously. We use it for locating friends, navigating cities, tracking children, and finding restaurants. The number of things we can do with location privacy is steadily growing as more and more Location Based Services LBS mobile apps enter the market. Our dependency on such services is growing as well.
People enjoy having a photo album that tracks their hiking progress, or a car that can tell you directions. These features are now expected in many products and those without can have difficulty being sold.
Many are concerned with the implications of user location tracking. People fear what others might do if they knew exactly every place they have gone over the past year. The trade-off between the benefits and risks of location tracking devices is now a hot topic with smart phones and cars.
While the public is still largely reliant on LBS, many are criticizing such services for consistent breaches of privacy and unauthorized use. The average person may use them for:. The average person is not the only beneficiary of such services. The government also finds such services useful. What rights the police and individuals have in regard to their location data is still being determined in courts, but location tracking has been used by law enforcement for:.
Tracking criminals One controversial case for law enforcement use of GPS is with tracking criminals. Monitoring Networks A less legal and more technical use of GPS can also be seen in monitoring large networks such as traffic. If traffic is tracked accurately enough, better roads and traffic jam notifications could be produced very quickly.
