[PEN-L:12039] Spy phones

[HANLY@xxxxxxxxxxx]

This is reprinted from another net with permission
  Cheers, Ken Hanly

Here is another of those "1984" future technology products which offers
some positive benefits at the expense of major intrusions on privacy, just
like the closed circuit tv camera systems which now operate in most British
towns. This piece from today's UK press refers at one point to the "Suzy
Lamplugh Trust": Suzy Lamplugh was a London real estate agent who was
murdered in an empty house by an apparent prospective client who had asked
her to show the house to him.

The world of new technology is sure taking us into new moral minefields.....

Colin Boyd
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Spy phones reveal cheating husbands

A MOBILE telephone being developed by British Telecom could soon spell an
end to the deceptions by idle employees, stressed executives and
adulterers.

The Mobile Social Alarm or Mosa, currently under development at BT, will be
the first telephone that can send precise details of the caller's location
to the person receiving the call.

Workers will no longer be able to phone the office pretending to be sick
when they are at the beach and movements of cheating spouses will be
exposed because the phone will show the caller's location to within 30
feet.

According to Don Golding, a mobile applications engineer in charge of the
project, companies will also be able to call the Mosa-phone without their
employees' knowledge to track staff.

He said that BT hoped one day to reduce the size of the spy phone to that
of a wristwatch. However, he stressed that the Mosa-phone had a more
serious purpose. Mosa-phones will have a panic button that automatically
alerts authorities of the holders' location.

British Telecom, which is working with the Suzy Lamplugh Trust, believes
that the phone could be used in emergencies by lone women travellers and
the elderly.

British Telecom has been talking to mobile phone manufacturers about the
Mosa-phone and is preparing to give the system a trial. It expects the
tracking feature will add around =A350 to the cost of a mobile phone. The
first system will work only when the phone holder is outdoors and within
sight of the GPS satellites.

However, the company is working on three systems to track down errant
employees and spouses indoors. They use triangulation between several
mobile phone relay stations to plot the phone holder's position.

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     Colin Boyd, Dept. of Management and Marketing,
    College of Commerce, University of Saskatchewan,
 25 Campus Drive, Saskatoon, Sask., CANADA S7N 5A7

                     boyd@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
     Phone: (306) 966 8436     Fax:   (306) 966 8709
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