Location Technologies

An increasing number of devices and systems have the capacity to locate and track their users geographically. These include cell phones, navigation systems, RFID chips in clothing or in implants, traffic control systems, anklet tags and wi-fi equipment.

Personal data may now include information about where someone is at a given moment, and is valuable to employers, marketers, travel system operators and law enforcement departments. Rising mobility rates stimulate the effort to trace persons, and the technologies and regulatory limits placed upon them may serve to facilitate further mobility.

This research focuses on location technologies in Canada, examining both broad national trends and also local case studies. Privacy questions are raised, but, possibly more importantly, questions of digital discrimination are also at stake within what Curry, Phillips and Regan call the more 'legible landscape'.

The report looks at the broad context of contemporary surveillance, and how location technologies fit within this increasingly networked and integrated environment. It also comments on developments in other countries -- such as E-911 services in the USA -- that have a bearing on the Canadian situation. Lastly, it attempts to gauge how ordinary citizens, workers, consumers and travelers interact with and respond to location technologies.

The research has strong implications for best practices, policy, and regulation, and is funded by the Office of the Privacy Commissioner in Ottawa, within their 'Contributions Program'.

Research team:
David Lyon
Department of Sociology
Queen's University

Steve Marmura
Post-doctoral Fellow
The Surveillance Project

Pasha Peroff
Project Researcher
The Surveillance Project

Wei Lui
M.A. candidate, Department of Sociology
Queen's University

Shane Simpson
M.A. candidate, Department of Sociology
Queen's University

Nicola Green
Department of Sociology
University of Surrey
United Kingdom

Files: 
PDF icon loctech.pdf