GPS Tracking And Privacy … Heartwarming
Heartwarming Tale: Boy Gets Lifesaving Transplant
GPS technology brought together a sick Pennsylvania boy with a new donor heart in the nick of time, reported WTAE-TV Pittsburgh and the Associated Press. Ten-year-old John Paul May of Harrisville needed to be located within a narrow four-hour window, but despite searching his mother’s usual haunts — such as the local mall and grocery store — hospital officials and police couldn’t find the family. His mother had a cell phone, but the volume was off.
With time running out, the boy’s cardiologists enlisted police to track down May’s mother through her cell phone. State police contacted Sprint Nextel Corp. to get the coordinates of his mother’s phone, and located them at a university jazz concert. Police officers rushed in, interrupted the performance, and told the entire audience that a new heart was waiting for John Paul.
The 500-strong crowd gave the boy a standing ovation as he left for the Children’s Hospital in Pittsburgh.
GPS tracking on personal phones can only be used in life-or-death situations or to track someone wanted in a homicide, according to state police. Otherwise, police must get a warrant from a judge.
At last report, the young John Paul was doing well with his newly found heart.
Courtesy GPS World magazine … if you are reading this site you must have an interest in GPS. If you aren’t reading GPS World, you are missing a LOT. I’ve been a subscriber for years, it’s well worth it.
Haven’t written on GPS Privacy for some time now. There’s a few previous articles here .. (see the “Categories” section or use the handy search box, top right). Saw this today and couldn’t resist passing it on. Even the most ardent privacy advocate has got to read this and think a bit. How great was the invasion of privacy of John Paul’s mom (one wonders why she was so enthused about personal privacy that she would risk her son’s life, but hey, that’s a story for another day)versus the outcome which resulted in a young boy being given a chance to live?
If you’re adamantly opposed still, that’s fine with me. But the train can’t be sopped and it’s up to all of us with opinions, for and against, to shape the schedule and route the train is going to take. Think it through for yourself, and then work with your elected officials, local, state and federal, to make the laws read the way you think they ought to. Come to think of it … how many elected officials even have an opinion on the tracking (GPS and other technologies) privacy issue? Does yours?