Cell Tracking on the Rise 233
An anonymous reader writes "ZDNet is reporting that with the recent advances in cell phone tracking tech more and more companies are using it to keep track of their employee's movements. From the article: 'The gains, say the converted, are many, ranging from knowing whether workers have been "held up" in the pub rather than in a traffic jam, to being able to quickly locate staff and reroute them if necessary. Not everybody is happy about being monitored, however, and civil rights group Liberty says the growth of tracking raises data privacy concerns.'"
Solution (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Solution (Score:5, Interesting)
nah, leave it on in your desk draw after diverted it... that way you're still busy working back late.
Re:Solution (Score:5, Funny)
Nah, glue the phone to the next plane to Brasil, or another country with lenient extradition treaties.
This should give the accounting department and the comptroller some pause.
Re:Solution (Score:2, Insightful)
What about the stalker who works .... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sure that many people will accept this kind of intrusion into their privacy, simply because it will be a condition of employment. That giant stick that has been bashing holes in our personal privacy for some time now.
This technology will undoubtedly provide some useful services, but it will also be abused. My guess is that it will take quite a lot of abuse before proper rules and restrictions are put in place so that people can control when they are being monitored.
Re:What about the stalker who works .... (Score:3, Interesting)
Hmm....I wonder if you could claim that carrying a cell phone that tracked you was akin to "the mark of the beast", and could refuse to do so on religious grounds?
If they refused to hire or fired you on this basis...then you could sue the hell out of them for discrimination...
Re:Solution (Score:4, Insightful)
It would be like offering to use your own notebook computer in lieu of the company one. Although I haven't personally tried (I use a Mac, anyway), I can imagine they might not be too keen on the idea. It's not too much of a stretch to imagine that they could track my position, based on the laptop, if they really wanted to. (Using reverse DNS lookups would give an approximation, or they could install a cellular Internet card that's GPS capable and do it that way.)
I have no problem in theory with my employer tracking my location during the working day. I could even see how it might be convenient (preventing a lot of "hey, are you working at site xyz today?" emails). I admit it has a certain potential for obnoxious use, but in the end, I think smart companies will realize that pestering their employees is counterproductive. If your most productive employee spends three hours a day eating lunch, who cares? As long as he or she is generating revenue for the company, a smart manager knows when not to get in the way. It's the same issue as Internet access. I think companies have the right to censor or filter their corporate intranets, but if they're smart, they won't.
I've worked for a bunch of high-tech firms, and none of them were laid-back, granola-munching hippie enterprises, yet none of them censored or blocked their Internet. How you got your work done was your business; if that included reading Slashdot or NFL News or whatever in the morning, more power to you. If you didn't perform, you got fired. That's the way it should be.
If you only do two hours of 'real work' a day, and spend the rest of the time reading Somethingawful, but do more in that two hours than everybody else does in eight, more power to you. If you work your butt off for ten hours a day, but do less in ten hours than most people do in two, you're fired. Nobody wants to know -- or cares -- how hard you work; what really matters is what you turn out at the end of the day/week/month/project.
If my company started getting on me about my Internet use, or (getting back to the article here) complaining because of where I was during the day based on cellphone-tracking data, and I was otherwise doing my job and generating revenue for the company, I'd quit. Not just out of spite because they're cutting into my Slashdot time, or hang-out-at-the-diner time, but because it would be indicative of a serious problem with how they were measuring performance.
So in short, the technology (cell phone tracking) isn't a problem. It's the companies who would use such a thing obnoxiously that are a problem, but in the end all they're going to do is hurt themselves by driving away good people to firms that have real performance-based metrics. I have some sympathy for somebody who works at a company that treats them like that, but only if it's a new situation. If you've been dealing with it for a while and it doesn't seem like it's going to change, dust off your resume and move along.
Re:Solution (Score:2)
Easy solution (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Easy solution (Score:2)
Re:Easy solution (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Easy solution (Score:2)
If you need to go to such lengths, wouldn't it be easier to just leave the phone at home (... or at work, hehe...)
Re:Easy solution (Score:2)
Re:Easy solution (Score:5, Interesting)
That won't help either! Each GSM phone has its own unique IMEI (International Mobile Equipment Identifier) number. Even if you remove your SIM card your phone can still access the network (you can use it for emergency call even if your SIM card is missing or invalid!) and it identifies itself by its IMEI. Roughly you can compare this to the hardware (MAC) address of your network adapter; even if you change your IP address, you can be tracked.
The only way for 100% security is removing the battery. If you live in the USA, your phone should exchange no information with the network when it's switched off - that the FCC regulation. But if you don't live in the USA, there simply might not be such requirement at all, check local laws that apply. Besides, if you are tin-foil-hat-paranoid, you don't really think "they" care about the FCC, do you? So remove the battery and don't waste your time to toy with a SIM card, as long as "they" know you use this particular mobile phone, "they" can still track you even if you feel secure with anonymous prepaid SIM card.
Just use your microwave containtment unit (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Easy solution (Score:2)
On the other hand - it's getting more and more common for portable devices to be released as US-version and UE-version. For example, European iPods have a so called volume cap [ipodhacks.com]. ROKR was initially released on American market only, etc. So... generally you are probably right, but it's not tha
Re:Easy solution (Score:4, Informative)
Each cell phone has unique vendor identification code called IMEI, which is used to identify the phone on cell networks.
Think MAC address, but it's harder to fake, and it's visible to entire network instead one lan segment.
Turning off your phone does block the trace as long as you move from the point where you turned the phone off.
Device-id query for powered off phone returns the last connected cell tower as phone location when the device itself cannot be reached from service area.
Atleast when we're talking about GSM networks
Re:Easy solution (Score:2, Interesting)
Interestingly, I have a cell phone from Thailand which I can't use in
Re:Easy solution (Score:3, Insightful)
The SIM is "your" identity. You used to be able to pop any SIM in any phone, and that phone would answer to your number and show your credit level. {But then, phone companies started locking phones to accept only their own SIMs; fortunately there are ways around this.} But the phone itself has an identity of its own; its IMEI, which is basically a kind of serial number. IMEIs are hard to falsify properly {though if you do ever want one for some purpose, you can always put a bag in a public
Just because you have a mobile doesn't mean (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd gotten very used to always having a mobile on, being able to be contacted anywhere and at anytime. But I got rid of my mobile 3 years ago and haven't bothered getting a replacement, and it's been very refreshing to have to make appointments to meet people and so on.
More realistically, if you have your own mobile, you can leave it on and have it with you 24/7. But a mobile from your job should be set to turn on at 9 and off at 5, if those are your hours. I'm shocked by how many people I work with allow their bosses to make them work outside of office hours by ringing them up and getting them to do errands in their own spare time. It's bad enough with European companies slowly moving towards the American model of unpaid lunch breaks that aren't even 30 minutes long, without also copying the 24/7 worker ethic.
Re:Just because you have a mobile doesn't mean (Score:4, Interesting)
So the solution you outline is not universal.
Re:Just because you have a mobile doesn't mean (Score:2)
This won't work for every application, but I wrote a Nextel J2ME app last year that provides realtime location tracking to a central server -- but it manages the employee's timecard as well. It tracks the employee's position if and only if they are on the clock, because otherwise the program isn't running. I think we need to have more services like this, to provide managers with the tools they need without destroying any hope the employee might have as to privacy. And it's basically impossible to 'cheat
Re:Just because you have a mobile doesn't mean (Score:2)
The company pays for the work one. The second one, your personal one, you pay for. During "non-work" hours, when you want your privacy, leave the "work" phone off, and have it forwarded to your "personal" phone.
The location records for your personal phone cannot be requested by your boss, except perhaps for a criminal investigation.
Yes, it costs money; but isn't your privacy worth $20-50?
Shivers! (Score:2)
You just sent shivers down my spine. That line sounded like one of those insurance commercials: "Isn't the peace of mind from knowing your family won't be burdened with unexpected funeral costs worth $1 a day?"
So, we have to buy our privacy now? Do you propose that we pay to guarantee our other rights as well? How much is the right to free speech worth? How much would you pay to be able to travel, to meet with your friends and family? How ab
Re:Shivers! (Score:3, Insightful)
Right now, you pay for a cell phone if you want one. It's yours, it's private.
Nothing in this article proposes changing that. Nobody would be able to get tracking data off of your personal mobile phone.
What's basically happening is that companies are going to have ways of tracking THEIR mobile phones, which they give to employees. Nobody is saying that you have to carry this phone with you on the weekends, or use it for personal calls, or anything else.
However, there seems t
Re:Just because you have a mobile doesn't mean (Score:2)
Re:Just because you have a mobile doesn't mean (Score:2)
And the funny thing is, as an American, my employers generally don't care if I take similar lunch breaks, or even if I in fact work 8 hours a day, as long as I get what I promise to get done gets done. Sometimes, unfortuantely, my estimation skills are poor, and I have to work 10-12 hours a day. On the other hand, sometimes my estimates are poor in the other direction and I get some free time to tend to other things.
Not everyone is as fortunate as me, and I get that. But, this didn't happen by accident
Re:Just because you have a mobile doesn't mean (Score:5, Insightful)
An employer who is not willing to take my word for, for example, that it took 20 minutes longer from the airport back to work today than it does on the average is an employer I have no wish to work for. End of discussion.
Re:Just because you have a mobile doesn't mean (Score:3, Insightful)
Once they learn that you answer your work phone after office hours, they won't hesitate to call again.
Of course this relates widely to the business you work in, but if it's any service-related field, chances are, some customer might call you during out-of-office hours and ask some trivial matter that could be solved by simply RTFM or by someone else at the office who actually might be working at that time.
Re:Just because you have a mobile doesn't mean (Score:2)
And that's fine with me as long as response time is within contracted limits.
Outrageous (Score:5, Interesting)
If my employer has any reason to believe that I'm screwing him, he can damn well take it up with me, not play Big Brother.
Re:Outrageous (Score:2, Troll)
Re:Outrageous (Score:2)
Re:Outrageous (Score:2)
Oh shut up, we're not even talking about the government here, where employees are perfect and never corrupt, we're talking about your office, where your boss is pissed off because you're not kissing his ass deep enough, and the guy who's actually monitoring your cell traffic wants your job.
Re:Outrageous (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Outrageous (Score:2)
Read between the lines (Score:5, Informative)
oblig.: "In Russia, you can always find a Cell Phone. In Soviet Britain, Cell Phone finds YOU!"
Re:Read between the lines (Score:2)
They stopped doing it for some time now, but the ability is there.
What's new is that the information is now open to public.
Tracking cell phones (Score:4, Informative)
If more precision is necessary, there are applications that request from your mobile the signal strenght of the available cells and triangulate from this data a better location. Depending on how the network is laid out, this can give very good results.
So if you want to have a peaceful time in the pub, best just take the battery out of your phone. This way it drops out of the network without signing off and you can always blame no reception. As an alternative, select nice pubs in cellars with no coverage.
This applies to GSM and UMTS networks. I have no idea if it also works that way with those weird american networks.
Re:Tracking cell phones (Score:2)
They'll still know that the last position reading from that cell phone was near the doorway of that nice pub under the pillars. From there, putting 2 and 2 together is not hard.
Re:Tracking cell phones (Score:3, Informative)
It applies to networks in the US, to an extent. But the tech is new, at least here. Carriers had to make all manner of upgrades to comply with emergency/911 legislation, and now they're trying to commercialize it.
In the US, a single cell of coverage might be (and usually is) up to 8-10 km in diameter. Previously, there was no way to get any kind of accuracy. So a lot of phones are equipped with GPS, so they can be 'pinged'. Even the ones that aren't GPS-enabled have been given signal strength feedback
Re:Read between the lines (Score:3, Informative)
When you enter the range of a cell tower, your phone sends it's number and 4 digit pin number. These are authenticated, and assuming everything works right, the cell tower updates your providers network that this tower can reach you. When someone calls you then, the telco looks up which cell tower(s) you are near, and tells them to connect with your phone. It does so, and everything is fine
The problem is.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The problem is.. (Score:2, Insightful)
If you are salary, you aren't paid by the hour. You are paid to perform a job. To protect themselves, companies have always defined jobs rather "fuzzily." In my company, every job description has something like "and misc. tasks as assigned." (Which means that your boss can change your job description anytime he wants - for a short term.)
Historically, management knew what this meant: if they need you to do something outside your job description once in
Re:The problem is.. (Score:2)
Slavery is becoming more and more feasable in today's world. Arguably, boned labour has already returned. It won't become widespread, just rare enough for those who engage in it to cream enormous profits.
TReating employees like cattle (Score:3, Insightful)
This often boils down to the situation, that if those requests and abuses are ignored, they have no serious consequenses. If my employer abuses the privilege of knowing where I can be reached outside business hou
July Bombings? (Score:5, Insightful)
There is increasing awareness about the importance of knowing where your staff are in case of incidents like the July London bombings.
So what good exactly is businesses tracking employees on an incident like that?
The range of things you can justify in fear of terrorist attacks never stops widening.
Re:July Bombings? (Score:2)
Re:July Bombings? (Score:2)
Re:July Bombings? (Score:2)
Isn't this a marketing opportunity.... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Isn't this a marketing opportunity.... (Score:5, Funny)
In the drawer of the table in the alcove, comrade.
Privacy (Score:5, Informative)
When you turn the cell phone off (or it is shutting down because of low battery), it nicely says the network is being shut down. So your evil tracer would know what you did.
It is a much better solution to unplug the battery. The cell phone will suddenly disappear from the network as if you were passing through an uncovered area.
And none could say where you are and why they don't know.
The only cons are about the loss of some cell phone data (like the last calls details and so on). But we can afford such a loss for the sake of privacy, can't we?
Re:Privacy (Score:2)
How about wrappng it up in the proverbial tinfoil? Radio can't travel into a Faraday cage. Maybe a zip-up metallic mesh bag for the more fashion-conscious.
except that (Score:2)
Removing the battery helps... (Score:2)
Faraday Cage? (Score:2)
Re:Faraday Cage? (Score:2)
But I love the idea to shut down the cell phone as a sign of my mighty power over technology!
Unions For High-Skill Workers (Score:4, Interesting)
It's long been an absurd kabuki that the time you spend in commute is somehow 'your' time and, thus, unpaid. But, of course, who would sit in traffic in their true free time? Employers now show that they understand this dicotomy, this theft, perfectly well; they'll try to extert control over your unpaid time as if they somehow had bargained with you for it.
If employers are organized, so must employees be. Unions are the only solution.
Re:Unions For High-Skill Workers (Score:2)
Re:Unions For High-Skill Workers (Score:4, Insightful)
The employer chose to have a distance between itself and centers of population that would provide its source of labor, so why should I waste my time commuting without being paid for it?
I've had employers move from convenient, accessible downtown locations out to suburban work parks in the middle of nowhere in the sprawl. Why? Well, you see, the company felt it could save on rent, so it decided to shift that cost from itself to the employees. My commute tripled, but somehow my wages and hours stayed the same....
The live to work rather than work to live attitude on
Add to that... (Score:2)
I'm not saying that I think an employer should pay for commute time. I'm just saying that the 'you choose to live away from your
Re:Unions For High-Skill Workers (Score:2, Informative)
Unions are NOT the answer. Indvidual people working together to assert their rights and make necessary c
Educate people (Score:2)
Learning that you can say NO, when to say NO, and what is the right way to say NO to the different persons and under different situations goes a long way to avoiding abuses from managers.*
Traditional unions with indust
Re:Unions For High-Skill Workers (Score:2)
Oh, yes. Clearly, the solution is that US workers need to be more like Chinese and Indian workers in terms of wages, benefits, hours, and employee/employer relationship, so that we can stop losing jobs. I'm sure US workers will thank you for that.
Strangely, slaves have never been grateful to slaveholders for the effort the
Tracking phones and ubiquitous data (Score:2)
This has been rattling around [babilim.co.uk] various blogs for a couple of days now, even making an appearance in the Guardian [guardian.co.uk]. It's interesting that it seems to be being posted as "news", as there has been user level access to this stuff since around 1995 when digital networks started rolling out properly. I'm not sure what's going, presumably it's one of those meme things...
Al.
lame excuses (Score:4, Insightful)
WTF? So if I DON'T consent, of course, on my annual employee's review, I won't be marked down with "TEAM PLAYER: -1" Riiiight....
"Some businesses want to keep an eye on their staff. Some feel they have an obligation to know where staff are in case of emergencies,... There is increasing awareness about the importance of knowing where your staff are in case of incidents like the July London bombings."
Huh? It's nice to know employers care about well being of emplyees, but seriously, what business of employer to track employees when something like "train bombing" occurs instead that of police? If that is the case, then health benifit and life insurance shouldn't be optional, but mandatory at work. Other wise, what does that really say? "We really care about your safty, but not really so much that we have to pay for your medicals."
"Knowing where your nearest employee is to a customer is also important. It allows a company to improve efficiency."
What? Any profession which requires (in my opinion) radio contact at all time may be useful in this case (such as EMT, police, fire fighters, cab drivers, doctors, field techicians, etc), but to improve efficiency on already shrunk-to-death workforce such as IT and sales (with high turnover)? Exactly how will that improve efficiency?
Jim the employer: Tom, I know you are by 3rd St. Get over to 5th and 7th, the nearest customer site ASAP.
Tom the employee: Jim, if you know where I am, you should know that I'm on a break and taking shit in a restroom.
Re:lame excuses (Score:2)
For companies with large field forces, knowing where an employee is can be a benefit to allow better planning in case of delays (traffic jams, spendign longer at the previous customer site, etc)
But I agree with you, for office jobs it's just a way to snoop on employees.
tis the classic freedom-for-security tradeoff (Score:3, Interesting)
Thats what warrents are for. (Score:2)
You don't need to trade away your freedom for security - ever. The due process of law that we hav
Re:tis the classic freedom-for-security tradeoff (Score:2)
WTF does my employer knowing when I go to the pub got to do with my security? If I'm f*cking kidnapped then by all means please let the police track my cellphone, thanks, but I see no reason why there needs to be a trade-off.
Employee Tracking Victim (Score:5, Interesting)
So, I resigned and immediately sued them. It turns out that a jury is very sympathetic when it comes to a company forcing a sick employee to come to work, even with a medical diagnosis of the flu and doctor orders to stay home. They are especially generous when it comes to a company actually writing someone up for trying to deal with the symptoms.
Of course, since they were a startup (what other kind of company would do something like that?), they didn't have enough cash for the settlement. They couldn't appeal because the local DA promised criminal charges if they did. Since they didn't have case, I settled for a majority stake in the company. I then sold it all to one of their competitors who took all of their IP and fired all of the executives, including the asshole who did that to me.
Re:Employee Tracking Victim (Score:2)
Re:Employee Tracking Victim (Score:2)
Jeez, dude. If the company treats you like shit, just resign and move on. There's no need to take the entire company down.
Re:Employee Tracking Victim (Score:2)
Poetic justicce. Awesome.
Re:Nice fantasy... (Score:2)
Hostile work environment cases don't care whether you resigned or were fired.
What criminal charges could a DA Possibly promise them for writing you up (not even firing you)? Why was the local DA even involved in a civil lawsuit in the first place?
ADA covers people with "temporary" disabilities (including the flu). Violations of the ADA would involve the DA (well, techically they violations are federal, but most local laws are re-
Stasi used radiation and smell to track you. (Score:5, Interesting)
Think like an East German.
East German secret police, the Stasi used scandium-46 with hidden radiation detectors to identify and track dissidents.
West German deutschmark banknotes, documents, clothing and meeting rooms where heavily tagged.
New Scientist, January 3, 2001
http://www.leftwatch.com/archives/years/2001/00000 4.html [leftwatch.com]
They also used to get your odour by rubbing it onto a piece of fabric. They would then have a jar with your fabric in it.
Trained dogs would then sniff you out.
Stasiland by Anna Funder
http://www.arlindo-correia.com/081203.html [arlindo-correia.com]
In Capitalist west phone irradiates you.
In Communist East Germany you irradiate phone.
Re:Stasi used radiation and smell to track you. (Score:2)
In Communist East Germany you irradiate phone."
I nominate this to be the best Communist revesal joke of the year.
It's a short-term problem (Score:4, Funny)
Of course, by using GoogleTracker you agree to allow non-humans to listen to your calls, for the purpose of identifying relevant ads.
Privacy advocates are satisfied that Google will not track your movement. They are satisfied that Google already knows everything about you. Google spokesmen have reinforced this, saying, "Monitoring your calls would be like triple-wiping. There's only a slim chance we'll get more dirt from you."
Cake and eat it too... (Score:2, Interesting)
However, I str
Why can't *I* use it? (Score:2)
Why does everybody get to track me but me?
911 in Ontario.... (Score:2, Informative)
Easy Solution (Score:2)
Privacy is dead, join the fishbowl.... (Score:5, Insightful)
How does it work? (Score:2)
Haven't seen something like this site in the US. Probably the response to the first question above will explain way.
I say, let's get this to the next stage (Score:2)
I mean, fair is fair, we should be able to know that the CFO goes visit his mistress every thursday evening, or that the CEO is out golfing
Re:Of course i'd complain (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not concerned with people getting busted for doing things on work time that they should not, but it's the precedent it sets.
Re:Of course i'd complain (Score:5, Insightful)
If you object, clearly you are guilty since you said you wouldn't object if you had nothing to hide.
Of course in keeping with the story, not only would the police have access to the cameras but your employer and coworkers as well.
Re:Of course i'd complain (Score:3, Interesting)
Track this list over time. For the US at least, it's clear that rights have been falling away far quicker than they are being affirmed.
This means that in the future, be it fifty years or three hundred, the government will need to be overthrown. Probably violently.
If the government has a camera in every
Re:Of course i'd complain (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Of course i'd complain (Score:2)
If one is a convicted pedophile, it means children have already been harmed. Putting cameras in *every* home in the country will go a long way to preventing pedophiles from getting their first victims.
Re:Of course i'd complain (Score:2)
Of course, this article isn't even about a police state, it's about the company you work for. And unless you
Re:Of course i'd complain (Score:3, Insightful)
Just because your willing to let your employer keep tabs on your location all day everyday doesn't mean everyone is or should be willing to adhere to your consent. For example: as it stands at the moment, if you use a company phone
Re:Of course i'd complain (Score:2)
Ok, and i give the same answer to people who whine about DNA databases.
make it voluntary, but everyone who doesnt will immideately be locked up for any crime committed untill they can find a better way of proving their innocence. let see who gets bored 1st.
What happened to "innocent until proven guilty"? That is a fundamental attribute of our criminal justice system. Are you advocating that we rewrite it as "gu
Re:Simple Solution (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Simple Solution (Score:2)
The writing on the wall (Score:2)
But, methinks by Nero your yeant Belshazzar and by Ezekiel you meant Daniel.
Re:Reasonable expectation of privacy? (Score:2)
I don't think it's about concealing anything. I think it's more about the contempt that this kind of surveillance demonstrates toward employees. While on one hand, companies do need to be cognizant of those they hire, I do not believe that shoving everyone into a fishbowl is appropriate. At some point, the fact that employees are gasp human beings, and not animals, has to enter the picture. There was once this dynamic
Re:You all *do* realize in the fictional Star Trek (Score:3, Informative)
And yet this is the world many of you fantasize about living in. Every week they fight for and babble on and on about the inalienable rights of aliens. How could anyone not believe they would use the ship's monitoring cameras to see each other's poker hands and use the Holodeck for Orion slave-girl porn reenactments?
In that same FICTIONAL UNIVERSE, employers and government don't abuse the massive database. The communicators for tracking are onlt worn by military personel, and only (necessarily) on duty.