The 2005 annual report of Canada’s Privacy Commissioner contains a full section on RFID (radio frequency identification) issues, but appears to be silent on location-based cellular services. You could say that the Privacy Commissioner’s fixations with RFID tracking are off-track.
RFID tagging dramatically extends the number of items that may allow our lives and behaviors to be tracked. There are real privacy concerns. But there are many more technologies that should be viewed as clear and present dangers, not the subject of a study to prepare for future world.
For example, the Privacy Commissioner’s RFID fact sheet speaks about situations, such as:
If the tag is unique, and can be associated with an individual, it becomes a unique identifier or proxy for that individual
The Airmiles program, as well as many other loyalty programs, know the kind of alchohol I buy, to accompany groceries and pharmaceutical products I purchased. RFID will allow them to know which particular bottle of Spanish Rioja I bought, but the brand and vintage is likely all that is needed to build a profile, not the individual tag. Couple that information with my location and the concerns of the Privacy Commissioner are realized. These are present dangers.
Should the RFID-type guidelines be applicable to my cell phone? Each cell phone has a unique identifier and can be associated with its owner. Rather than dealing with a hypothetical future world that may combine Global Positioning Systems (‘GPS’) with RFID, there are guidelines and rules needed to deal with the existing combinations of mobile GPS and AGPS tracking, data collection and reporting.
We need serious discussions to focus on privacy issues with the current deployment of location based services. It is one thing to track our teenagers when they are out in the family fun-wagon on Saturday evening. But that information means that other people could also access the same data to know where that car is sitting, how fast it is travelling – perhaps issue speeding tickets based on such information.
Add GPS and AGPS to cel phones and we can track where anyone is located and who is assembled with them. There are real issues to be examined, such as: who has the ability to disable tracking; and, should it be able to be turned on remotely to help in search and recovery?
Numerous policy questions arise that need to balance convenient consumer features, commercial services, public safety and personal privacy concerns. These are difficult issues that have implications for technology development.
The Privacy Commissioner has already found that there are limits to her extra-territorial powers – the ability to pursue cases outside of Canada. We need rules for these technologies and privacy solutions that ensure that Canadians are protected from threats, both within and outside our borders.