Related Politech message: http://www.politechbot.com/p-05008.html And a column I wrote on this a while ago: http://news.com.com/2010-1071_3-5064829.html -Declan -------- Original Message -------- Subject: Always-on location tracking in cellphones Date: Wed, 21 Sep 2005 18:04:30 -0400 From: Richard M. Smith <rms@private> To: 'Declan McCullagh' <declan@private> Hi Declan, We have talked before about the FCC mandate which is requiring all U.S. wireless carriers to provide location information to emergency operators accurate to about 150 feet on all 911 calls as part of the Enhanced 911 program (http://www.fcc.gov/911/enhanced/). To meet this FCC mandate, my Verizon Wireless Treo 650 cellphone includes some kind of GPS tracking technology. The Treo also has an option to select if location information is sent in to Verizon for all calls or only 911 calls. I was a bit surprised to learn that my Treo defaults to always sending location information. After a bit of initial confusion, I got confirmation from both Palm and Verizon Wireless that my observation about the default was correct. However, Verizon Wireless told me this is a mistake and going forward, they plan to change the default to "911 calls only". I'm curious now when other models of cellphones transmit location information to carriers. Can folks on Politech check their cellphones and phone manuals to see what kind of controls there are over location information and send me the results? I'll also need the make and model of the phone and the wireless carrier. For my Treo phone, I found the location option under "Phone Preferences" in the Options menu of the main phone screen. Thanks, Richard M. Smith http://www.ComputerBytesMan.com _______________________________________________ Politech mailing list Archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ Moderated by Declan McCullagh (http://www.mccullagh.org/)
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