Pending legislation in Congress germane to Poynt..and Wilan.
The strategy of placing the location-based fence around individual users (Poynt) seems significantly superior to the competing notion of putting the fence around the business.
From WSJ via Fierce Wireless:
Legislation mandates companies get consent before sharing location data
Two bills introduced Wednesday in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate propose new restrictions on how both government agencies and private firms can collect and implement user location data. Specifically, the bills mandate that companies including Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) and their software developer partners obtain express consent from smartphone and tablet users before sharing information with third parties.
The Location Privacy Protection Act, spearheaded by Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.), chairman of the Judiciary Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology and the Law, and Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), vows to close loopholes in federal law to guarantee that consumers know what location data is collected and give them the option to decide whether they wish to share it. In a statement, Franken said he proposed the bill after determining that existing laws are insufficient to protect information stored on mobile devices.
"Geolocation technology gives us incredible benefits, but the same information that allows emergency responders to locate us when we're in trouble is not necessarily information all of us want to share with the rest of the world," Franken said. "This legislation would give people the right to know what geolocation data is being collected about them and ensure they give their consent before it's shared with others." Organizations including the Center for Democracy and Technology, Consumers Union, the National Association of Consumer Advocates, the National Center for Victims of Crime and the National Consumers League have endorsed the legislation.
The Geolocation Privacy and Surveillance (GPS) Act, proposed by Sen. Ron Wyden (D.-Ore.) and Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R.-Utah), would require law enforcement agencies to get a warrant to track a citizen's location via mobile phone or special tracking device. The bill proposes the creation of a legal framework designed to give government agencies, commercial entities and private citizens clear guidelines for when and how location-specific data can be accessed and used. Existing federal laws governing location tracking are notoriously murky, with some major legislation dating back to 1986--a lifetime ago in relation to recent technological innovations.
The furor over location tracking exploded earlier this year after British researchers reported that Apple's iPhone and iPod devices had recorded location and time-stamp data since the mid-2010 release of the iOS 4 software update, effectively creating a comprehensive log of all user movement and activities during that time. Apple later explained that iOS devices are gathering location information to maintain a database of Wi-Fi hotspots and cell towers in the user's vicinity, enabling an iPhone to more rapidly and accurately calculate its location when requested. Apple added that calculating a phone's whereabouts via only GPS satellite data can take up to several minutes, while its approach can slash the process to a few seconds.
Apple said the iPhone data collection resulted from a software bug patched earlier this month with the release of its iOS 4.3.3 update. iOS 4.3.3--compatible with the iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4, the third- and fourth-generation iPod touch and the iPad and iPad 2--reduces the size of the location database cache from up to a year to about a week, halts cache backup to iTunes and deletes the cache entirely when users disable their device's Location Services feature.
Last month, Apple and Google appeared before the U.S. Senate to defend their mobile device location tracking policies, but lawmakers expressed skepticism over whether the companies are adequately protecting user privacy. At that time, Franken said he maintains "serious doubts about whether [privacy] rights are being respected in law or in practice."
AI
