People Tracking

When in 2004 the notion was shared that people could be tracked by their mobile phones – even when they are turned off – many who had not been watching 24 were a little surprised. Equally around the same time, when Hertz started using GPS to track where hire cars were driven, and into which states, some customers found this level of monitoring to be both unexpected and hence unacceptable. However, Aviva found that customers were not ready for Pay-as-you-Drive insurance.

 

Five years later, knowing where you (or others) are by your mobile phone has become as commonplace as GPS tracking of vehicles. Google’s Latitude app launched last year allows you to see where your mates are, Mobile Suica are commonplace in Japan and fast evolving into mobile tracking and payments, personal tracking services are burgeoning (Trackaphone, Mapamobile, IKids etc)and location based marketing services are finally coming into the mass market – for everyone from diabetes patients and Starbucks customers. The ‘future world’ of just five years ago is pretty well here today: Hospitals tag babies, and facial recognition systems are integrated into many CCTV systems so to track individuals; while RFID tags are finally providing a whole additional layer of data and surveillance options. So what comes next?

 

The EU is seeking to ensure that, by 2012, every vehicle has an inbuilt SIM card (along the lines of On-Star), NFC technology for mobile payments will provide another tracking platform and a number of interesting new services are coming to market – Sense Networks and AirSage are using real time mobile location data for predictive analysis of people and traffic movement. In a couple of weeks we have a dedicated workshop on future of data, identity and security – so look forward to adding more examples to the mix and making sense of how far this area will have moved by 2020.

Popularity: 100% [?]