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WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS AND LOCATION TRACKING

Description of issue. The products and services offered by the wireless industry are advancing at a dizzying pace. Digital cell phones are becoming smaller, cheaper, and smarter. Mobile phone users can send and receive e-mail and pager messages and surf the Internet. Hand-held personal digital assistants, PDAs, are also equipped for wireless communications.

Looking ahead. The vision of many marketers is to be able to deliver location specific advertising to wireless devices. So, if you're traveling through the city on I-494, you might receive a message telling you that just off the next exit is a restaurant that serves your favorite cuisine, Thai food. Or as you walk past Starbucks, you'll be flashed a message offering a special on double lattes.

OJ Simpson found out the hard way that cell phones can serve as location detection devices. His travels in the white Ford Bronco were tracked throughout Southern California because of the ability to triangulate the signals emitted from cell phones to and from the nearest communications towers. In fact, location tracking is now required by federal law. Cell phones must be able to pinpoint the user's location to the nearest 100 feet for emergency assistance.

Unfortunately, the trade-off for these conveniences and personal safety features is personal privacy. We Americans cherish our ability to travel freely and anonymously. But the new generation cell phones threaten to track us everywhere.

The wireless industry is well aware that consumers do not want their communications devices to double as surveillance technologies. Industry representatives are taking steps to develop privacy guidelines. They know that the wireless industry will not thrive unless customer privacy can be protected.

But so far, government regulators have not followed their lead. In August 2002, the Federal Communications Commission turned down the industry's request to adopt wireless location information privacy rules that would cover notice, consent, security and customer integrity.

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