Will GPS tech lead to 'geoslavery'?
Tracking technology gives access to dangerous power
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This wristwatch has GPS built in.
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LAWRENCE, Kansas (AP) -- Jerome Dobson worries that 1984 may be just around the corner. Dobson, a University of Kansas research professor and president of the American Geographical Society, is concerned that technical advances carry the potential for bringing about George Orwell's nightmarish vision of a society that destroys privacy. This new threat, says Dobson -- a respected leader in the field of geographic information technologies -- is "geoslavery."
Devices currently on the market, for example, use satellites to locate and track people anywhere on the planet.
One company sells a device that can record a vehicle's location so employers can keep track of every move their drivers make.
Sounding an alarm
Another company makes implanted chips to keep track of livestock or pets, and a device that looks like a digital wristwatch that can pinpoint the wearer's location and sound an alarm.
Dobson knows the good these devices do, but he also worries that they may be abused. He hopes his fearful vision will create debate and perhaps legislation or safeguards around the technology that will keep it from being misused.
Already the technologies are sparking debates regarding privacy. Add a transponder to a locked device, he said, and the punitive possibilities are endless.
 The phrase I like to use to bring this home is to ask, 'How long would Anne Frank's diary be if she were wearing one of these nifty devices?' 
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-- Jerome Dobson, University of Kansas professor
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"What we are suggesting," Dobson said, "is that we are only one technological step from placing a transponder in there that burns or stings a person if they step off a prescribed path by a meter. Or if they stay too long in one place. Or cross the path of another person they are prohibited from seeing, or if they congregate with other people.
"I can confine you to a place. You can't go there. Or you must go there. And I can control it."
Avoiding abuses
In the hands of repressive governmental regimes, the devices could be devastating, Dobson said, just as they could be in people's personal lives.
Before going to Kansas less than two years ago, Dobson worked 26 years at Tennessee's Oak Ridge National Laboratory creating, for the government, the maps used in global tracking.
"We may avoid the most serious abuses of this technology in the U.S. because we have a tradition of personal freedom," he said. "But it will differ by country and by culture. Think of the countries where they already have ethnic cleansing."
Copyright 2003 The
Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
