Useful tool or serious breach of privacy?

[Ethel]

I can see the advantages for parents and carers, I suppose, but this makes my skin crawl

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article -1135489/We-know-Google-lets-track-friends-fam ily-mobiles.html

[Ethel]

I can't understand why anyone, except for parents and carers, would ever want such a thing.

[scaniavabis]

This has been available for some years already in the UK. It has always required the users consent. Comanies have been trying to sell this system to me so that I might track my employees. It works on a very simple principle but always requires users consent because a text message is sent to the mobile asking the user to press reply if they agree. I don't see that this system is any different if you have to turn it on anyway.

My trucks are tracked 24/7/365
As the drivers all but live in their vehicles I don't see a difference. Telematics are a an important part of todays businesses, maybe your private life is heading down the same route. I've always been of the opinion that if you've nothing to hide.......

[Ethel]

I have nothing to hide but have no wish to know where friends and family are every minute of the day, nor do I want them to know my every move.

Similarly I will not open emails with msgtag and similar software.

[fo3nix]

[begin rant]

"I've always been of the opinion that if you've nothing to hide....... "

This is fundamentally wrong. Everyone should have a right to personal privacy. It's nobody else's business if I do have something to hide or not. The initial hypothesis cannot be that someone is probably doing something wrong; it has to be that they are doing something OK.

What's more, the definitions are constantly being changed by the ones controlling the system (i.e., the government).

I mean, by that length, if next week a ruling went out forcing everyone to be naked at all times, you've be OK with it? I mean, you've nothing to hide...

[end rant]

Regarding this Google thing: as the above say, it's techology that's been around for years, nothing new. As long as it's an opt-in (and not opt-out) service, then only those who want to use it will do, which is fine. Personally I don't like the idea, but I can imagine some pretty cool games resulting from this.

[scaniavabis]

fo3nix

The way I read the question, Ethel is asking for an opinion. I gave mine, I didn't comment on other peoples opinion, I just answered the question. Why don't you try doing the same?

[fo3nix]

Everyone's entitled to their own opinion, that's true.

However some opinions are just plain wrong. The "If you've got nothing to hide" argument is so wrong, I don't know where to begin.

[whiskeryron]

I think it sounds like a good idea if used sensibly, after all surely it could help to track missing persons. I'm going to stick my neck out now & say something very controversial, I have always been of the opinion that all babies when they are born should be by law given a form of ID injection which would remain in the body permenantly, there would then be no such thing as a missing child ( or Person).

[scaniavabis]

first of all apologies to ethel as this is unrelated

The fundemental flaw in your argument fo3nix is that you're trying to say someones opinion is wrong. An opinion cannot be wrong, it's not a fact, a statement or anything else that can be classified as wrong or right. However, you're trying to say that your opinion that "if you've nothing to hide" is wrong...it cannot be wrong it's an opinion, not a fact. It might be your opinion that my opinion doesn't agree with yours but that's as far as it goes. Who in history decided their own opinions were facts and everyone else's opinions were merely opinions? Every dictator that ever ruled, that''s who!

[fo3nix]

I apologise, my wording was wrong. You're 100% correct of course.

I hope we agree to disagree, heh.