Google Latitude: A helping hand or a watchful eye?

The other week, while happily ensconced before the whirring conveyor belt of my local sushi restaurant, I happened to stumble across something in the Times comment section that almost made me choke on my Chumaki. It seems that internet polymath Google has added another “neat” and “handy” feature to its already burgeoning array of applications in the form of Google Latitude: a mobile phone based tracking system.

Essentially the software allows people to monitor the movements of others using mobile phone masts, GPS, and wi-fi hardware in conjunction with the pre-existing “my location” feature. Although Google spokespeople stress the safety of the system; its opt-out clauses and privacy safeguards I couldn’t help but feel a creeping sense of unease as I gradually learnt more about the ramifications of this supposedly benign device.

I’ve known and accepted for some time now that the mobile phone I carry on a day-to-day basis is, in effect, a radio collar which the “powers that be” can readily exploit to zero in on my movements should they so wish. The idea that this ability is to be extended to civilians is, perversely, even more unerving.

One only has to look at the effect other social networking medias such as Facebook and Myspace have had in exposing people’s private lives to the public domain and the by now standard “profile trawling” undertaken by prospective employers. In a society where mobile telephony is ubiquitous, it is hard to see how people will ever be able to roam undetected ever again. Parents will monitor children, couples will monitor each other people whom you’d rather avoid will hunt you down and subject you to their inane chatter. Ok, perhaps I’m being a tad melodramatic, hell you can always just switch off your phone and hey presto! You’ll drop off the radar. I just feel we need to question and exercise caution when a technology such as this comes along, rather than just blithely embrace it. Many people treated Facebook like a toy and got their fingers burnt, and unless people know what they’re dealing with, the same could happen with latitude.