Overlapping technologies track individuals and share information concerning their movements day or night.

As he sat near the frosted window of a Cambridge coffee shop, Andrew Blumberg’s academic look easily blended in with the crowd. A laptop computer and a steaming cup of coffee were precariously balanced on a tiny table; occasionally, Blumberg consulted an Apple iPhone pulled from a jacket pocketYet Blumberg was acutely aware that he was a long way from anonymity, even though he knew no one there except a reporter he had just met.

There were many ways strangers might have identified and tracked him, Blumberg said, pointing out no less than 12 interactions that could have generated such information as he made his way to this specific spot: Darwin’s, Ltd., on the edge of Harvard Square. Had he stopped at an ATM, for example, the bank would know he had been there, and when. Had he traveled on the T, a turnstile could have noted the time and station when he swiped his pass. There were also a half-dozen technologies that could still be tracking him as he sat, he said.

Still, he is among a growing number of academics and technologists who are starting to raise concerns about what’s being called “location privacy,’’ the idea that the proliferation of mobile devices, smart cards, tracking technologies, and Internet databases is creating an environment in which citizens are under a constant threat of surveillance. As overlapping technologies and systems start sharing this information, location privacy advocates say, it will become easier for governments, employers, and interested parties to track an individual’s everyday movements.

Link:
http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2010/01/18/overlapping_technologies_track_individuals_and_share_information/