GPS Cell Phone Tracking

GPS Cell Phone Tracking

September 11, 2001 changed the world. And some of the things that changed may be things you are not even aware of. At the time of the World Trade Center Bombing, calls from a cell phone could not be tracked. This made locating victims and rescue workers very difficult. As a result, the federal government mandated that by the end of 2005, all cell phones must include the capability of being traced within 100 meters. So, if you own a phone that was manufactured after 2005, your location can be tracked.

As you can imagine, there are good and bad sides to GPS cell phone tracking.

Positives of GPS Cell Phone Tracking

• Parents are able to use it to locate their children. The children aren't very happy about the fact, but it gives parents peace of mind and enables them to know things such as when their child heads to Joe's house instead of Sue's if their child is at the mall instead of at school. Even more importantly, if you have a teenage driver who has been in an accident you will be able to locate them quickly. In recent years there have been situations where a person was in an accident where they had gone down a steep embankment and no one could locate them because the accident wasn't visible to passersby. GPS cell phone tracking would certainly help in these situations.
• Child Abductions - something none of us like to think about, but we all know it is a possibility. If your child can manage to hang onto their cell phone, this can assist in locating them quickly.
• Marital tracking Spouses can use GPS cell phone tracking in a number of ways. Helping to locate a missing spouse or spying on one believed to be doing things they shouldn't.
• Alzheimer's patients People can use the GPS technology to keep track of people suffering from Alzheimer's. This involves shoes instead of cell phones, but since the elderly might walk out without a cell phone, but are more likely not to walk out without their shoes, this is a great step forward for the children of people who suffer from this disease. And it is just another example of how GPS tracking is beneficial.

Negatives of GPS Cell Phone Tracking

• Lack of Child Privacy - some feel that this is an invasion of a child's privacy, but really, since when did knowing the whereabouts of your child become an invasion of their privacy. They may not like it, and I am sure there are some instances people can think of (like a child running away from an abusive parent) where a child's privacy is necessary, but overall, one of a parent's many jobs is to know where their children are. This will help them with that.
• Lack of Adult Privacy - in the case of marriage, this one is going to be a toss up. Does a spouse have the right to know where you are every waking moment? This is something you and your spouse will have to deal with and there are no easy answers here. Some may feel comforted knowing that they can be located should an emergency arise. Others may not be happy being caught at doing things that are either a surprise (stopping in a jewelry store to pick up a diamond ring) or things that they shouldn't. Also, as mentioned earlier, if there is an adult suffering from Alzhiemer's, some type of GPS tracking may be the thing that saves their lives
• Government Spying - This is the real sticky question. If you are suspected of criminal activity, the police can go to court and request access to the tracking information from your phone so they can see where you are going. The judges are not making these decisions in a uniform fashion and frightening images of BIG BROTHER are popping up. Apparently, requests for this kind of tracking are sealed, so there is no way to know if it assisting law enforcement agencies to locate difficult to catch criminals, but it certainly does open up a whole lot of questions about how private is our lives?