Privacy Group Calls Google Latitude a Real 'Danger' 227
CWmike writes "Privacy International is calling Google's new mapping application an 'unnecessary danger' to users' security and privacy. The criticism follows the unveiling this week of Google Latitude, an upgrade to Google Maps that allows people to track the exact location of friends or family through their mobile devices. Google Latitude not only shows the location of friends, but it can also be used to contact them via SMS, Google Talk or Gmail. 'Many people will see Latitude as a cool product, but the reality is that Google has yet again failed to deliver strong privacy and security,' said Simon Davies, director of London-based Privacy International, in a statement. The group's chief concern is that Google Latitude lacks sufficient safeguards to keep someone from surreptitiously opting into the tracking feature on someone else's device."
Frightening (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Everyone focuses on the negative (Score:2, Interesting)
People have the option of simply not using Latitude, not updating their location, etc. Crisis averted.
that's not always true. i just served jury duty where the defendant was accused of using tracking devices and various technologies to be sure his daughter wouldn't talk about how she was being used as his sex slave.
i'm not saying this makes google's stuff bad, but certainly there are good and bad uses for technology.
Re:Everyone focuses on the negative (Score:3, Interesting)
This is different, but only slightly...
In my case, I have a wonderful GPS equipped blackberry, with the GPS disabled by the provider. {sigh}. My "location" is determined by the tower that I an connected to, and my signal strength.
As I found out by dialing 911 because I needed an ambulance where I was (long story, not a happy ending), even though GPS was enabled for emergency services in the configuration, they had absolutely no idea where I was. There was too much noise because of the road traffic, so all they knew is I had an emergency. I was on a long interstate, and was probably in their county, since the towers connect to the local emergency operations center. She never repeated back my location that I told her several times. She said someone would be on the way. 15 minutes later, no one had arrived. I opted to transport the person in my car instead. e911 is worthless. They don't really know where you are.
What Google Latitude shows is my nearest tower, and a circle indicating where I might be, based on my signal strength, as detected on my phone.
Whatever agency may be hunting you down (are you really paranoid?) gets either good coordinates if your phone provides it, or range around the nearest tower. Since it's provided by a non-governmental company, I'm sure they're happy to sell that information to whoever pays enough for it. It's not terribly accurate. Right now, it shows me within a 5 mile radius of the closest tower. I could be somewhere. There are only several hundred buildings to check in that area. Am I on the move? Maybe I'm in a car. Am I driving? Does the driver even know I'm laying in the back of his truck? Am I camped out on the back porch of an empty house? There are plenty of empty foreclosed houses these days.
So, am I concerned about my privacy? Not really. A few friends have been added to my list. They're the same friends that I've told "Now you know where I am." I always tell them anyways.
If some spooky agency wanted to pick me up, wouldn't it be a simple matter of checking the tax record, and finding where I work, or any of dozens of resources to find where I live? Most people are fairly predictable. They go to work in the morning. They come home at night. Occasionally they go out and do something else, but most people aren't paid enough to go out on a regular basis any more.
Re:Tell me again (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Everyone focuses on the negative (Score:2, Interesting)
Actually the problem is people like you. You are getting desensitized. So when the government wants to track everybody, you and your ilk will just think "well, we've been doing it for years and its quite harmless, really!"
Re:Everyone focuses on the negative (Score:3, Interesting)
As I found out by dialing 911 because I needed an ambulance where I was (long story, not a happy ending), even though GPS was enabled for emergency services in the configuration, they had absolutely no idea where I was.
I needed the RAC (British autombile club) a few days ago; I knew where I was, but they also told me that they could have found my location anyway since I called by mobile phone (and mine is ancient), all they needed (for legal reasons) was my permission.
Re:Everyone focuses on the negative (Score:5, Interesting)
Also by default it does not use the gps so it's always about 2500 feet off from where you really are.
Hope you don't have WiFi. I tried Latitude, it was a few hundred metres out when I used it on my phone and just a few metres out when I used my GPS - exactly what you'd expect.
What freaked me out was when I noticed it said it could work on my laptop. So I tried it. Equivalent accuracy to the GPS, with no GPS and no phone plugged in. WTF? Do they know where my IP address is? Hop in the car and start driving around - still within 20m everywhere I went in this city. Turn the WiFi off and it loses track. The only way that could work is if Google have mapped the physical location of every WiFi network and are using them to do the locating. I knew that was theoretically possible, but I didn't know Google had actually done it. For some reason, I found that slightly creepy.
Re:Everyone focuses on the negative (Score:2, Interesting)
Hmm, are you even allowed to talk about this? I thought juries are not allowed to say anything?