New Applications of GPS

New Applications of GPS

New Applications of GPS

@import url(/common_scripts/css/styles.css);@import url(/templates/wmmcapital/css/styles.css); The role of global positioning satellites has been swiftly changing since their first introduction to the market some ten years ago as a solution for those who struggled to read a map and steer a car simultaneously. Since then, GPS has begun to fulfill practical functions in industries completely apart from cartography. They are in our phones, fueling countless applications, in the shoes of Alzheimer's patients and in time sensitive packages to prevent them from getting misplaced. They have another use too; however, more daunting than foursquare, as tracking devices for FBI targets.

Certainly trailing a potential suspect is a well documented practice of the FBI but what is less recognized is the observation and tracking of individuals who have no criminal record like Santa Clara, CA resident Yasir Afifi. Afifi, who was recently featured in an NPR article, was taking his car in for an oil change when a GPS tracking device was discovered beneath his vehicle. The device was removed and in Affifi's possession until the FBI came to his house and retrieved it.

Affifi, like any college student without anything resembling a criminal record, was baffled as to why the FBI would be tracking him. His experience begs the questions of why the FBI would single him out or why they single anyone out and what technologies they now employ to pursue their targets.

GPS systems are shrinking, becoming modules and chips in our iPhones or slipped into orthopedics. This means, more than ever that they can be used to track us discreetly, and according to current legislation that's just fine. What's most disconcerting about it all is that with close to 550 million GPS enabled devices in use, we are asking for it. Already, the trail left by GPS tracking units is phone has served as the sole evidence in legal cases.

The accuracy of GPS phones is astounding and the technology is only improving, as evidenced by the new developments and the success of companies like GTX corp. GTXO and other companies like it devote themselves entirely to innovating new applications for GPS, and there are many. They have social networking apps on Samsung, modules in shoes and others in packages containing life science experiments.GPS is everywhere, that's why we like it. But that's also why it's scary. For GTXO and for the companies that employ their technologies, it's good for business but for the average Joe like Affifi, it's a little more worrying. If GPS can go anywhere we do, and there are no legislative rules preventing the tracking of anyone, for any reason, the technologies that make our life easier also put us at risk for involuntary and unwarranted surveillance.

What makes this realization interesting is that despite the potential for a disturbing lack of discretion, in spite of the discomfort Affifi claims he experiences everyday thinking he might be watched, many Americans are already too attached to GPS to let it go in the name of privacy. Already an entire generation has been reared with no reason to learn how to read a map and an attachment to their cell phones that is nearly umbilical. Four million foursquare users check into their locations multiple times a day and while there's a sense that this information is of no concern to anyone unless we're guilty of something, cases like Affifi's force us to question whether that's true.

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