GPS "Spying" In More Ways Than One
My good friends over at Gizmodo featured this device today under the heading of “Screwing over young drivers everywhere“. Maybe that’s their view … we’re all entitled to a couple opinions or two, but frankly I like this little beast. It’s business-card size, can use an external GPS antenna (the bane of most of these simplistic, self-install trackers) and unlike the typical offering make use of both the GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) of the phone carrier’s system, or the text (SMS-Short Message Service) network. This greatly enhances the coverage, because, especially in the US, GPRS coverage is not nearly what the cell carriers would want you to think it is, but you can send a text from a lot of the USA.
The reason Gizmodo sounded so negative … coming out in favor of continuing our “do nothing” plan to end the single largest cause of teen deaths … unsafe teen driving … is that one of the features you’ll see on this unit is a microphone connection. The owner of the device can place a call to the tracker’s SIM (Subscriber Information Module) card and cause it to silently turn on audio monitoring inside the vehicle (if the optional microphone is attached). This may be overkill for some parents …. but to each his/her own. It’s an option, not a requirement, and there are times it could be darn useful … so use as desired.
Interesting though that the young guys/gals at Gizmodo (and some other blogs who featured this device) seem to think it’s something new. Almost every GM car and truck sold in the past 5 years comes equipped with OnStar. Owners who don’t chose to use the features of OnStar can opt not to pay a monthly fee … but the hardware, GPS tracking And Voice Monitoring capability stay with the car for life. (OnStar can be removed/disabled, but there’s a whole separate Internet sub-culture on that, OnStar is integrated into other vehicle systems and can’t always just simply be unplugged.) The OnStar control center can “listen in” on any powered OnStar device, 24/7, anywhere. So is this a GPS tracking issue, a cell phone issue, or merely an illustration that the super-liner USS Privacy has already ripped its side open on the iceberg?