Ride the Lightning

Even a Tin-Pot Dictator Can Use Your Phone to Track You Globally

August 27, 2014

There is just no end to the erosion of our privacy.

To prove it, the Washington Post has an excellent and in-depth article on how manufacturers of surveillance systems are offering governments around the world the global capability of tracking people through their cell phones.

Your phone, of necessity, needs to know where you are to make calls and deliver services – and that's an inherent vulnerability. Those who use this technology simply type a phone number into a computer portal which collects information from the location databases maintained by the cellular carriers. The system thus learns which cell tower a target is using, revealing his or her location to within a few blocks in an urban area or a few miles in a rural one.

Dozens of countries have reportedly bought or leased this technology. Eric King, the deputy director of the London-based activist group Privacy International, says "Any tin-pot dictator with enough money to buy the system could spy on people anywhere in the world."

Just bloody marvelous.

To add to the fun and games, cybercriminals and others can use this tracking technology, which has a murky legal status. In many countries, it is illegal to track people without their consent or a court order, but there is no clear international standard for secretly tracking people in other countries. And global entity to enforce a standard if one existed.

More than usual, this article is worth reading for its depth of content. Just be prepared to finish it depressed at yet another indicator that privacy is a quaintly historical concept.

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