Missouri Discovers and Uses Technology
The great state of Missouri is finalizing an initiative to use cell phone tracking software to monitor highway traffic.
Sample scenario? I’m so glad you asked:
Driving to work, you notice the traffic beginning to slow. And because you have your cell phone on, the government senses the delay, too. A congestion alert is issued, automatically updating electronic road signs and Web sites and dispatching text messages to mobile phones and auto dashboards.
As you might have guessed the anonymous tracking of people via their cell phones is rubbing the “Big Brother Haters” the wrong way.
“Even though its anonymous, it’s still ominous,” said Daniel Solove, a privacy law professor at George Washington University and author of “The Digital Person.” “It troubles me, because it does show this movement toward using a technology to track people.”
As someone that fights St. Louis Missouri traffic daily, anything that allows for faster updating of traffic data the better. I’m not worried about the government tracking where I’m going because its not exactly a secret where me and my hundreds of thousands of traffic driving friends are going: Home. If Big Brother is spending this much money to find out I’m going home at 5:00 pm tonight then they really could have just saved some money and asked me, or even just looked up my address.
I think its cool. Anyone out there have a problem with this use of technology?