Cell phone privacy concerns everyone, simply because everyone owns a cell phone and to some extent feels they deserve some privacy on it. As one popular Facebook cartoon puts it, it’s the age where you can touch each other but not each other’s phones’. Our idea of privacy and space had radically changed and along with it our notions of what is right and what is not when it comes to privacy and technology. The unfortunate part is that not everyone agrees on said changes.
The FCC (Federal Communications Commission) is trying to settle out the battle it seems by getting the public to open up and express their views on the whole matter. It is a democracy after all, and what the majority feels has to key in as a major factor in the entire debate if this system of government is to have any worth at all. So, it puts forward the question to everyday cell phone users asking how to protect cell phone privacy. But something is lacking in the equation: a platform to point out the tracking needs of individuals. So much has already been said about the need for privacy, but what about other needs?
What Parents Care About
So while the Courts and Lawmakers, Politicians and Support groups go out of their way to ban cell phone tracking altogether, there are scores of other agencies and organizations who feel it is absolutely necessary. For one, parents are rightly concerned when they are approached with the idea of banning cell phone tracking altogether since they truly have a lot to lose : the safety of their children.
If parental monitoring software goes out the window one fine day as a result of all the court charades and political bickering, parents will have a lot more to deal with than just the idea of strangers picking their children off the street. It can happen right in their own home without them ever being in the slightest knows. Moreover, it’s a direct safety hazard for children using the internet. So what, in this new day and age, are parents supposed to ban their children from using the internet altogether for their own safety? Sounds extreme but that really seems to be the only other option if you let the real privacy extremists have their say.
Employer Woes
Most companies and well off organizations monitor employees via cell phones and PCs. The practice is catching on and almost all businesses and small scale companies are investing effort into it and doing it too. The reason is simple enough, everyone wants security. Running companies and businesses is no small task. Just about anyone can bring in some malware or dreaded spyware with the new BYOD trend. Employers feel it is their right (in the pretext of a precaution) to know what their workers are up to during work hours. If workers spend their time playing Angry Birds instead of actually getting any work done, then an employer needs to hire someone else.
It’s a business and that is the way things get done. Keeping track of what employees are really up to in the time that they are paid to work is actually a necessity now. Failing to keep an eye, or in this case a technological eye, can result in a substantial loss of time, capital, and effort. So, chucking the idea of monitoring employees in the dumpster is not one that will fit well with a lot of potential employers either. And nor should it. Technology has been designed to make our lives easier, not more contained. Perhaps the FCC should involve these opinions in its attempt to update itself too.
You can watch FCC videos on their official Youtube Channel
