New Jersey Politician Adds Most GPS Devices To Driver Distractions To Ban

from the sigh dept

We've pointed out time and time again how silly it is for politicians to run around trying to ban each and every driver distraction, rather than just focusing on beefing up laws for reckless driving. There have been laws or proposals against driving while talking on a phone, texting, viewing a video screen, faxing, eating, shaving, playing video games and even having sex. And now, Comboman alerts us to a proposal in New Jersey to ban drivers from using GPS devices that require manual programming. Instead, drivers could only use those with voice control features. Next up? Who's going to ban adjusting the radio dial or the air conditioning?

Filed Under: driving distractions, gps, new jersey

And Yet Another 'Anonymous' Dataset Proves To Be Not Anonymous

from the how-it-goes dept

For years, we've been pointing out that there's really no such thing as an anonymized dataset. There's almost always ways to associate data back to people. We've seen it happen over and over again as companies claim they're releasing an anonymous dataset, only to discover later that it's not so difficult to re-nomynize it. In fact, there was even a recent paper on how to re-identify people based on an anonymous data set. So perhaps it should come as no surprise that yet another "anonymous dataset" has been shown not to be very anonymous. This time, it's about GPS data that was supposed to be scrubbed of identifying info, but some researchers have found that it's not hard to put that data back together, knowing that the two main places people go are home and their office. With that info, you could pretty easily uniquely identify people. Among the many reasons why this could be important? All those silly efforts by politicians to force drivers to install GPS devices in order to tax their driving habits. They always insist the data won't be used for tracking, but even if they're well intentioned, you can see how the data can be abused.

Filed Under: anonymity, anonymous dataset, gps

Another Court Says Police Don't Violate The Law In Putting A GPS Device On Your Car

from the tracking-you-in-public? dept

We first discussed this issue way back in 2003, wondering whether it was really a violation of privacy for police to put a GPS tracking device on a suspect's car. In 2005, a court said it was perfectly legal, though there were concerns about what this meant. We're seeing the same concerns as another court has ruled the same way. The reasoning and the logic is effectively the same: if you are traveling on public roads, anyone could (theoretically) drive behind you and see where you are going -- even without a warrant. So is it really a violation of privacy if that tracking is done by a little black box attached to your car instead of a big black box with four wheels?

Of course, the flipside to that, is that if you are driving you can also see (for the most part) if there is another car following you and that other car cannot follow you onto private property that you own. A hidden GPS device is quite different on those points. So while the courts seem to be coming down on the side of this not being a violation of privacy, I can definitely see where privacy advocates are troubled by these rulings. The fact that they effectively suggest the police can simply put a hidden GPS device on any car for no reason at all raises plenty of questions -- especially in an era when information can and is regularly abused.

Filed Under: gps, police, privacy, surveillance

Another Driver Chooses To Believe GPS Over The Reality Of A Cliff

from the the-machines-are-taking-over dept

Ah, yet another tale of a British driver turning on his GPS unit and turning off his brain: a guy in Yorkshire left his car teetering over the edge of a cliff after blindly following his GPS down a narrow, steep path. The GPS said it was a road, and the driver seems to have let that override his common sense, as plenty of people are wont to do. Drivers often like to blame the technology for taking them down some treacherous path, but it's not as if the device simply suggested a suboptimal route, or drove the car itself. The infallibility some people see in technology is troubling, since they seem to see things like GPS units as perfectly acceptable replacements for their brains.

Filed Under: driving, gps

Tracking Sex Offenders With GPS Isn't A Bulletproof Solution

from the panacea? dept

A 13-year-old girl in Washington was killed last month by a registered sex offender who was being monitored with a GPS tracking device. The tragedy illustrates how such tracking devices -- whether fitted to criminals or children -- aren't magic bullets that offer total protection. In this case, the GPS device helped police corroborate the killer's confession, but it didn't stop the crime. He was being tracked passively, not in real-time, but even if he were, the fact that he was in a field wouldn't have helped anyone notice that he was trying to rape, and then killing, the girl. The devices may prove useful from an evidence standpoint, but that's only after a crime is committed. Perhaps part of the intention is that they'll also act as a deterrent, though sadly that wasn't any help in this case. Whatever the intention, it's important to remember that the devices themselves really don't offer much protection, and shouldn't be viewed as standalone solutions to preventing crime.

Filed Under: crime, gps

Massachusetts Wants GPS Driving Tax, Too

from the big-brother dept

For several years, authorities in Oregon have been pursuing a plan to put GPS units in every car in the state to track and tax drivers' mileage. Now, Massachusetts wants to get in on the act, and replace its gas tax with a mileage-based tax (via Boing Boing) generated by GPS units in cars. The state wants to ditch its gas tax because rising fuel efficiency is leading to decreasing tax revenue, so the new plan would instead charge drivers a quarter of a cent for each mile they drive. The state's governor is talking not just about boosting tax revenue, but says he likes ideas that are "faster, cheaper, simpler." It's not clear how replacing the current gas tax by forcing drivers to install GPS trackers in their cars and building an infrastructure to gather data from them, then assess and collect a mileage tax will be fast, cheap or simple. This doesn't even mention the myriad privacy concerns of giving state employees access to records of Massachusetts drivers' activity. This idea continually pops up, whether as a tax idea or a new way to charge for auto insurance -- but it never seems to hold any more value beyond a soundbite.

Filed Under: driving, gps, massachusetts, monitoring, tax

It's Baaaack. Oregon, Once Again, Pursuing GPS Driving Tax

from the bad,-bad-idea dept

It's been well over five years since we first heard about a plan in Oregon to attach GPS devices to cars and tax drivers based on how much they drove and the idea hasn't become any better in the intervening years... but apparently it's still being pushed. Against Monopoly points us to the latest report that Oregon's Governor is trying to move forward with the plan. One of the reasons behind the bill has nothing to do with a more efficient way to tax drivers, but because the state is gaining less revenue from its gas tax since there are more fuel efficient cars on the roads these days. Of course, rather than reward drivers for driving more fuel efficient cars, this sort of tax punishes them, and actually encourages the use of less fuel efficient vehicles. And, of course, that doesn't even begin to get into the potential (and likely) privacy problems brought about by any system whereby the government has full access to a GPS system on your car.

Filed Under: driving tax, gps, oregon, privacy

Patent Lawsuit So Bogus That The Judge Ordered Sanctions And Attorney's Fees Paid

from the about-time dept

There are an awful lot of bogus patent lawsuits out there, but even when the lawsuits are tossed out it's very, very rare for a judge to order the plaintiffs to pay the legal fees of the defendants. However, in Illinois it just happened. Joe Mullin has the story of a patent that was quite clearly limited to an infrared camera linked to a GPS system. The patent examiner required the inventor to include the word "infrared" before declaring the patent acceptable and non-obvious. Yet, that didn't stop the patent holder from suing LG, Pantech and Disney for the Disney mobile phone service that let parents track where their kids were. The product was a huge commercial failure, but those are three big companies worth suing for infringement.

However, the judge noted, sternly, that the patent holder and the law firm that was handling the case (which had also worked on the patent) clearly decided to ignore what the patent actually said about it being for infrared cameras. This practice is more common than it should be. Even when claims are written to be narrowly focused, there's always some wiggle room, and many patent holders bring lawsuits on technologies that are pretty far from what's in the claims -- usually hoping that the accused will settle rather than take the issue to court. In this case, though, the judge pointed out that it was clearly a frivolous lawsuit, and ordered the defendants get reasonable costs and attorneys' fees. If this happened more often, maybe we'd see fewer ridiculous patent lawsuits.

Filed Under: attorney's fees, cameras, frivolous, gps, infrared, patents
Companies: disney, lg, pantech

Encyclopaedia Britannica Fails In Attempt To Revive Infamous Multimedia Patent

from the the-sum-of-all-human-knowledge dept

Last year, we pointed out how rather ironic it seemed that a company like Encyclopaedia Britannica, who is supposed to be in the business of spreading knowledge, would sue GPS makers for patent infringement. However, at the time, we were unaware of the history of the patents in question. Joe Mullin, over at The Prior Art, has the full story, including the fact that the case relied on a rather infamous patent, that gave many folks a preview of future patent battles to come.

The patent in question was about doing searches on CD-ROMs and was granted in 1993. The original patent holder, Compton's, claimed that: "Everything that is now multimedia and computer-based utilizes this invention," and noted, of course, that basically everyone in the industry now owed it money. The outcry over this was so great that the commissioner of the patent office initiated a re-exam by himself, eventually getting all of the claims of the patent rejected. However, with some back and forth, eventually greatly narrowed claims were approved in 2001. In 2005, EB, who had taken control over the patent (it had been an investor in Compton's) decided that the patent applied to GPS systems, even though it's pretty clear that the patent had nothing to do with GPS systems.

After a few more years of battling, the good news is that a court has, once again, found the patent to be invalid, more or less (hopefully) closing the book on this patent, but demonstrating how the patent system has been misused yet again. The original patent was clearly way too broad, and it took years to get that worked out. And, then, even the eventually-allowed patent was asserted against totally different systems, only to finally be brought down years later. While some patent system defenders may suggest that the system works, since the eventual outcome was okay, there was an awful lot of time, money and effort wasted on all of this that could have gone towards actual innovation.

Filed Under: cd-rom, gps, multimedia, patents, search
Companies: encyclpaedia britannica

Is Bell Canada Going To Purposely Screw Up GPS Signals To Harm Competitors?

from the get-lost dept

It's good to have market power, apparently. Remember how Bell Canada started throttle bandwidth to its reseller partners without telling them? And then told them to shut up and take it when they complained? Oh, right, and then tried launching its own video download store just as it was making it more difficult for anyone else's to work? Apparently, the company may be doing that again... Michael Geist points us to reports that Bell Canada is looking to purposely degrade the GPS signal on certain Blackberrys for anyone using third party mapping programs, such as Google's. However (wouldn't you know it?), Bell is promising to allow the GPS to work properly if you pay the company $10/month and use Bell's own mapping solution.

Filed Under: canada, competition, gps, monopoly power
Companies: bell canada