Welcome to your future. An article in the New York Post today provides us with this startling glimpse of what your life will be like once you sign up for your free Google phone service and get your Google phone.
Some deserving miscreant has the poor misfortune of being our first victim. Yes, as the article describes, he has been hammered by his employer for claiming to be at work in the late afternoons, when in reality he had cut loose early and was sluffing it at home, many times.
But the crucial element here is not some run-of-the-mill time-clock milking, rather it is how his employer was able to determine this guy's whereabouts. And how did they know? Well, they tracked his every movement using the global positioning function (gps) on the company cell phone that they gave him! That's right, though Mr. LeaveEarly claimed he was at the job site, the employer trumped his claim with the gps data from his phone. Case closed.
Now do I side with a guy cheesy enough to cheat his boss out of $50 a day? No. I don't care if the kid gets fired and ends up flipping burgers. But, as far as how he was tracked, I side very strongly with this guy. And we all should be hopping up and down about it. He was given a company cell phone. (Actually it was a school district cell phone because he worked for the school district.) But when he received the cell phone, he was NOT told about it's gps functionality. He did not know that he was able to be tracked.
Frankly, a person who only behaves when someone is watching is not necessarily someone I would want to personally hire; such character flaws will inevitably bite you in one way or another, but that is not at all the point here. The point is the human tracking system that has been put in play here.
Of course the justification for such a decision to issue a gps phone to an employer is based on a protection issue: the company wants to protect its assets by not paying money for services not rendered. Or maybe to prevent theft, as it were. This type of justification is always the type of reasoning that is used to add another layer of security and has certain merits. But such merits do not go nearly far enough to justify such an implementation. Not with all the implications that a human tracking system brings with it.
Why doesn't the school district, rather than to insult and threaten all of humanity with the deployment of such an ominous tool, just hire people who aren't turds? How about having a responsible structure of supervision like everybody else. Because the administration of the school cannot figure out how to supervise its employees does not mean that it needs to bring in such a threatening weapon. Its like bringing Godzilla into your house to get rid of the cockroach you found in your kitchen. Sure Godzilla eats the cockroach, but he also devours and destroys the whole city.
Yes, fear is always the justification for new protection measures. Always has been, always will be. Fear of losing possessions or fear of losing life. But I think we can eliminate the fear of losing life in this case since that was not at all a concern here. It was fear of losing possessions; money.
Well, regardless of the fear factor here, there is a much more important issue at hand. And that is the issue not of losing possessions, but of losing freedoms! We as humans are not a herd of anything that needs to be tagged and monitored. Because it is possible does not make it right. We are not fodder for some database. Our normal comings and goings on a daily basis are, frankly, no body's business.
In fact the tracked-and-busted employee might have a good case that the gps system followed him not only at his job, but on his private time as well which to me, is clearly a case of invasion of privacy. Had the employee given the company permission to track him on his actual free time, off the clock and off the job? No? Then this is invasion of privacy.
But ironically, fear will not be the hook that Google uses to justify its own implementation or spreading of this preventable disease. No, Google will invoke the Tracking Monster in the name of 'information.' That will be their sales pitch; and they will dress it up with more flavorful benefits than Baskin Robbins: free cell phone service, universal phone number, free messaging, call screening, etc., etc.
Despite how appealing the benefits are, despite how altruistic their sales pitch, 'gathering the world's information,' seems, their underlying motivation reveals that indeed, there's nothing new under the sun. For what drives and supplies Google's quest to put your movements on a database in Mountain View boils down to just plain money.
Other institutions may be seduced to implement Godzilla out of a fear to protect money. Google, (let's call it Googzilla) will drop it upon mankind to get money.
Simple greed all dressed up and someplace to go (as in -- go with you...everywhere.)
