MichaelZimmer.org

Red Herring reports that Verizon Wireless is launching a GPS tracking service called “Verizon Chaperone” so parents can monitor the location of their children via their cellphones. Along with the ability of parents to log into a website to determine the cellphone’s location, Verizon will also offer a “geo-fencing” service whereby a parent receives a [...]

OUT-LAW.COM posts about an opinion on privacy compliance from the EU’s Article 29 Working Party on Data Protection. The issue at hand is the growing ability to triangulate location data with the plethora of data services/devices we use in everyday life: cellphone with location tracking, GPS navigation systems, PDAs that recommend nearby restaurants – so [...]

Bruce Schneier points us to the latest steps the UK is taking to embark on wholesale surveillance of citizens driving on the public roads: Britain is to become the first country in the world where the movements of all vehicles on the roads are recorded. A new national surveillance system will hold the records for [...]

Declan McCullagh at CNET offers his commentary on the latest example of “driving big brother”: GPS tracking of vehicles in support of mileage-based road user fees. From his commentary: In principle, the idea of what bureaucrats like to call “value pricing” for cars makes sound economic sense. Airlines and hotels have long charged less for [...]

MIT seems to like to experiment with ways of tracking its students. LawMeme reports that MIT has granted students access to information about its network traffic perviously available only to network administrator’s. Students can now log in and view the a map pinpointing all the devices connected to the network (laptops, wireless PDAs and even [...]

The state of Missouri has begun a program to track individual movements on highways through cell phones: The Missouri Department of Transportation will spend $3 million annually on a program to monitor the movements of individuals on highways via their cell phones — without their knowledge or consent. Delcan NET, a Canadian company, developed the [...]

Bruce Schneier points to this Wired piece on an MIT student’s research project where he handed out specially-equipped cellphones as a way to document the lives of students and employees of MIT. From the article: Eagle’s Reality Mining project logged 350,000 hours of data over nine months about the location, proximity, activity and communication of [...]

My earlier discussion of privacy as Contextual Integrity builds on the problem of “privacy in public and how public surveillance has become a part of a modern citizen’s everyday life. This AP article drives home just how ubiquitous surveillance cameras have become. (I especially like the photo of the surveillance camera underneath the street sign [...]

Over recent weeks, I have commented on numerous articles about privacy threats involving vehicles and highway travel. I am completing a major research project on this topic, arguing that the introduction of new technologies into the context of highway travel disrupts the “contextual integrity” of the flow of personal information. It seems appropriate, then, to [...]

Privacy.org points to a Boston.com article that discusses recent privacy concerns about the upcoming implementation of E-ZPass (electronic toll collection) in New Hampshire: The E-ZPass system that will soon make it easier to pay tolls in New Hampshire will make it easier to track people’s movements, privacy advocates warn. State officials say strict policies are [...]