Euro Serfs, I understand, plan to use a triangulation position location service that violates individual privacy. Hopefully such phones and systems will be banned iin the US. Qualcom will use Snap Track, a GPS BASED SYSTEM THAT RESPECTS PRIVACY. But what do serfs care about such things?
""San Diego, Calif.-based Qualcomm said its chips support an ''opt-in'' approach to protecting
wireless phone users' privacy. This means the GPS processor embedded in the chip is pre-set to
the ``off'' position. To activate it, a consumer must either dial 9-1-1, the U.S. emergency number,
or punch a request for a position fix into the keypad.""
Tuesday June 19 5:53 PM ET
Qualcomm Ships Chips to Pinpoint Wireless Callers
By Jim Wolf
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Qualcomm Inc. (NasdaqNM:QCOM - news), the wireless technology
giant, said on Tuesday it had begun to ship a new generation of chips designed to pinpoint a
caller's location in an emergency.
The chips will start showing up in phones in Japan this summer and in the United States by Oct. 1,
a deadline set by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (news - web sites).
Jonas Neihardt, vice president for federal government affairs, told a forum organized by an
industry-led advisory committee to the Congressional Internet Caucus that the new chips were
outperforming accuracy standards mandated by the FCC (news - web sites)'s wireless Emergency
9-1-1 rule.
``As we refine this technology we will be able to deliver results in many cases down to a couple of
meters,'' he said, referring to the so-called automatic location identification handsets.
To meet FCC requirements, such devices must test accurate to within 50 meters 67 percent of the
time, and to within 150 meters 95 percent of the time.
Similar requirements apply to mobile phone companies that opt to meet the FCC mandate by
deploying position-location technology in their networks that works on signal strength.
The handsets use the Global Positioning System (GPS), the Defense Department-operated satellite
navigation tool, as well as cellular towers to zero in on locations anywhere in the United States no
matter what the terrain.
The idea is to help the authorities save lives since many wireless callers cannot describe their
location to an emergency operator. Over a regular land line, the existing technology typically
flashes the caller's address.
PRIVACY ISSUES
San Diego, Calif.-based Qualcomm said its chips support an ''opt-in'' approach to protecting
wireless phone users' privacy. This means the GPS processor embedded in the chip is pre-set to
the ``off'' position. To activate it, a consumer must either dial 9-1-1, the U.S. emergency number,
or punch a request for a position fix into the keypad.
The rollout of such technology augurs a host of new targeted marketing opportunities over the
next generation of the Internet, including the possibility of sending advertisements or electronic
coupons to mobile phones carried near a shopping center.
But James Dempsey of the Center for Democracy & Technology, a non-profit group that monitors
civil liberties issues on the Internet, said new laws were needed to prevent any erosion of
constitutional rights against unreasonable search and seizure.
``As technology evolves, the government gets whatever you have,'' he told the forum, referring to
evidence law enforcers might seek in a criminal case from a mobile telephone company's records.
Under the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986, prosecutors do not have to establish
probable cause that a crime has been or will be committed to get wireless phone records, Dempsey
said.
AT&T Corp. (NYSE:T - news), Sprint PCS (NYSE:PCS - news) and Verizon Wireless, a joint
venture of Verizon Communications (NYSE:VZ - news) and Britain's Vodafone Group Plc
(VOD.L), have told the FCC it is premature to adopt rules governing location privacy practices. |
