Monitoring at every step, data collection at every stop! GPS on

GPS On: Possibility of permanent tracking in Indian smartphones

The discussion on permanently enabling GPS on mobile phones has intensified in India. If this rule is implemented, your phone will not only have location information, but your entire journey, speed, stopping moments, and people you meet along the way will also be recorded. This will be a process of creating a detailed map of the movement of every citizen, instead of general tracking.

new face of surveillance

Till now, information about the neighborhood was obtained from tower triangulation, but GPS can prepare an accurate map of your activities. If this is combined with SIM binding, Aadhaar linking and FASTag data, the government will have integrated data of every citizen’s activities available.

Why did this issue start?

The question arises why this discussion started suddenly. Actually, telecom companies do not want to invest in tracing infrastructure. She wants the smartphone itself to do this through battery and GPS. This means that the responsibility is being removed from the network and placed directly on the handset.

For whom a threat, for whom a weapon?

The government argues that this will make it easier to identify terrorists and criminals. However, critics say that this system can also pose a threat to the privacy of journalists, opposition leaders and ordinary citizens. There is no concrete law for surveillance in India, due to which the boundary between national security and political interests is becoming blurred.

What next?

Nikhil Pahwa, an expert on dynamic technology policy, said in his LinkedIn post that the pressure on handset manufacturers to implement this permanent GPS will increase. But the question is also whether these companies will take any responsibility towards the privacy of the users. There is likely to be further discussion on this issue in the coming months.