The juxtaposition between location-based services, privacy and law enforcement is bringing up new questions about how industry and individuals collect and use information, who should have access to it and how that information should be disposed of.
Media reports that Michigan State Police were asking people they had pulled over for their cellphones, and then taking that information from the cellphone, had many people up in arms, complaining that law enforcement is overstepping some boundaries. Earlier this week, Google Inc. (GOOG) and others were asked to appear before a Senate subcommittee to explain how they handle consumers’ location information. As part of that testimony, the Department of Justice detailed how it guards against cyber attacks, but also would find some tracking information useful in helping it to solve crimes.
“One particular area of concern for the Department in collecting digital evidence – and one which bears directly on this hearing’s topic – is ensuring that law enforcement can successfully track criminals who use their smart phones to aid the commission of crimes. When connecting to the Internet, smart phones, like computers, are assigned Internet Protocol (IP) addresses. When a criminal uses a computer to commit crimes, law enforcement may be able, through lawful legal process, to identify the computer or subscriber account based on its IP address. This information is essential to identifying offenders, locating fugitives, thwarting cyber intrusions, protecting children from sexual exploitation and neutralizing terrorist threats – but only if the data is still in existence by the time law enforcement gets there,” testified Jason Weinstein, deputy assistant attorney general at the DoJ.
For years, the wireless industry has been touting the benefits of location-based services, and we’re definitely seeing them today. LSN Mobile recently reported that its local news application has been downloaded 5 million times since it was first introduced in 2009. The Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Emergency Management Administration earlier this week announced that New York City would be the first city in the nation to benefit from emergency cellular alerts in a government mandate originally introduced in 2006.
Location matters. But how that information is distributed raises entirely new questions that industry and government will have to address. I don’t expect all the answers will be easy.
