<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div>Threats of surveillance by employers, stalkers, obsessive friends, etc, have existed long before Latitude, and most methods are must easier to employ than surreptitiously activating a service on someone else's phone</div><div><br></div><div>The PI press release is a bit over the top, IMO. Although I agree with them that GOOG should create a more persistent warning/reminder for users that the service is active. See <<a href="http://michaelzimmer.org/2009/02/06/with-latitude-google-actually-got-it-mostly-right/">http://michaelzimmer.org/2009/02/06/with-latitude-google-actually-got-it-mostly-right/</a>></div><div><br></div><div>-mz</div><div> </div><div><br></div><br><div apple-content-edited="true"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0; "><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div>-- <br>Michael Zimmer, PhD<br>Assistant Professor, School of Information Studies<br>Associate, Center for Information Policy Research<br>University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee<br>e: <a href="mailto:zimmerm@uwm.edu">zimmerm@uwm.edu</a><br>w: <a href="http://www.michaelzimmer.org">www.michaelzimmer.org</a><br><br></div></div></span> </div><br><div><div>On Feb 6, 2009, at 7:50 PM, Lucia Sommer wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite">Hi Michael, <br>to my mind the concerns surrounding surveillance in this case aren't limited to privacy, but extend beyond that to include human rights issues like workers' rights. Surveillance by ones' employers may not be optional if one wants to keep the job. Concerns have also been raised about Google's security safeguards -- quoting:<br> <br>However, London-based Privacy International says it has identified several potential methods for covertly tracking the locations of mobile devices without the knowledge or consent of their users.<br><br>[edit]<br><p> For example, the privacy watchdog said enterprises could provide their workers with phones on which Google Latitude has already been enabled, allowing the movements of staff members to be tracked by senior management without their knowledge. Any phone left unattended would be vulnerable to having Google Latitude installed without the knowledge of the handset's owner, the group warned. Additionally, phones given as gifts would potentially be subject to the same privacy violations. </p><p> <span class="subhead"> Masking Movements </span> </p><p> The documentation for Google Latitude says users can mask their movements any time they wish. "You can hide your current location from all friends or from individual friends at any time," Google said. "When you hide your location, your friends will not see your photo icon on a map and will not see a location for you in their list view." </p><p> But Privacy International warns that the same masking technology could be used by others to prevent smartphone users from realizing they are being tracked. </p><p>"The only means of minimizing this threat might be a regular message sent to a phone advising that it has been Latitude-enabled," the watchdog said. "However, according to Google, this function is available only in certain circumstances" and may only apply to "certain unspecified phone types." </p> As it stands now, Davies noted, Latitude could be a gift to stalkers, prying employers, jealous partners, and obsessive friends. "The dangers to a user's privacy and security are as limitless as the imagination of those who would abuse this technology," Davies said.<br><br><a href="http://www.sci-tech-today.com/news/Misuse-of-Google-Latitude-Feared/story.xhtml?story_id=012001GSW8JC">http://www.sci-tech-today.com/news/Misuse-of-Google-Latitude-Feared/story.xhtml?story_id=012001GSW8JC</a><br> <br><br>Best,<br><br>Lucia<br><br><br><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Fri, Feb 6, 2009 at 8:04 PM, Michael Zimmer <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:zimmerm@uwm.edu">zimmerm@uwm.edu</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"> <div style=""> Rarely am I a Google apologist when it comes to privacy, but they've actually done a pretty good job with this one. It is fully opt-in, you can fine tune precisely who gets to see your location (and how granular you want that location-data to be), and, according to their own privacy help video [1], Google doesn't keep a log of all your pings to the system. <div> <br></div><div>[1] <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9H4xaTspaQ" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9H4xaTspaQ</a></div><div><br><div> <span style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><div> <div>--</div><div>Michael Zimmer, PhD</div><div>Assistant Professor, School of Information Studies</div><div>Associate, Center for Information Policy Research</div><div>University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee</div><div>e: <a href="mailto:zimmerm@uwm.edu" target="_blank">zimmerm@uwm.edu</a></div> <div>w: <a href="http://www.michaelzimmer.org" target="_blank">www.michaelzimmer.org</a></div></div><div><br></div></span><br> </div><br><div><div><div></div><div class="Wj3C7c"><div>On Feb 5, 2009, at 11:14 AM, Lucia Sommer wrote:</div> <br></div></div><blockquote type="cite"><div><div></div><div class="Wj3C7c">another one for the normalization-of-surveillance files:<br><br>Spy on Your Workers with Google Latitude<br><a href="http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/158975/spy_on_your_workers_with_google_latitude.html" target="_blank">http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/158975/spy_on_your_workers_with_google_latitude.html</a><br clear="all"> <br><br><br></div></div><div style="margin: 0px;">_______________________________________________</div><div style="margin: 0px;">iDC -- mailing list of the Institute for Distributed Creativity (<a href="http://distributedcreativity.org" target="_blank">distributedcreativity.org</a>)</div> <div style="margin: 0px;"><a href="mailto:iDC@mailman.thing.net" target="_blank">iDC@mailman.thing.net</a></div><div style="margin: 0px;"><a href="https://mailman.thing.net/mailman/listinfo/idc" target="_blank">https://mailman.thing.net/mailman/listinfo/idc</a></div> <div style="margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br></div><div style="margin: 0px;">List Archive:</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><a href="http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/" target="_blank">http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/</a></div> <div style="margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br></div><div style="margin: 0px;">iDC Photo Stream:</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/idcnetwork/" target="_blank">http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/idcnetwork/</a></div> <div style="margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br></div><div style="margin: 0px;">RSS feed:</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><a href="http://rss.gmane.org/gmane.culture.media.idc" target="_blank">http://rss.gmane.org/gmane.culture.media.idc</a></div> <div style="margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br></div><div style="margin: 0px;">iDC Chat on Facebook:</div><div style="margin: 0px;"><a href="http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2457237647" target="_blank">http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2457237647</a></div> <div style="margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br></div><div style="margin: 0px;">Share relevant URLs on <a href="http://Del.icio.us" target="_blank">Del.icio.us</a> by adding the tag iDCref</div> </blockquote></div><br></div> </div></blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>Lucia Sommer<br>60 College Street<br>Buffalo, NY 14201<br>(716) 359-3061<br><br> _______________________________________________<br>iDC -- mailing list of the Institute for Distributed Creativity (distributedcreativity.org)<br><a href="mailto:iDC@mailman.thing.net">iDC@mailman.thing.net</a><br><a href="https://mailman.thing.net/mailman/listinfo/idc">https://mailman.thing.net/mailman/listinfo/idc</a><br><br>List Archive:<br>http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/<br><br>iDC Photo Stream:<br>http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/idcnetwork/<br><br>RSS feed:<br>http://rss.gmane.org/gmane.culture.media.idc<br><br>iDC Chat on Facebook:<br>http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2457237647<br><br>Share relevant URLs on Del.icio.us by adding the tag iDCref<br></blockquote></div><br></body></html>