Beyond Privacy: Confronting Locational Surveillance in Wireless Communication

Three imperatives--emergency response, law enforcement and marketing--inform the legal, economic and technical design of location surveillance in wireless systems, resulting in a system in which real-time tracking of users by system operators is the status quo.

Abstract

Abstract Three imperatives--emergency response, law enforcement and marketing--inform the legal, economic and technical design of location surveillance in wireless systems. Each imperative is pursued by a set of actors in a particular historical context. Participants in these arenas call upon each other's rhetoric, legal standards and technical practice, resulting in a system in which real-time tracking of users by system operators is the status quo. These data also become available to law enforcement agents. Social repercussions include a shift in the power of individual and institutional actors to create types of places and types of persons. The relation of the citizen and the state is also being restructured. Privacy is an inadequate legal or philosophical response to these trends.