Beijing to track (17 million) citizens with their cell phones

[Robb]

Well, I can't see anything possibly going wrong with this. :D

http://thenextweb.com/asia/2011/03/03/beijing-to-track-citizens-with-their-cell-phones/">...from TheNextWeb:

As if the Great Firewall is not enough, the Chinese government is now looking into monitoring the movement of 17 million cellphone users in Beijing, China by tracking the signal of their mobile devices.

Purportedly to improve Beijing’s public travel and reduce traffic congestion, the new initiative, literally translated as “Platform for Citizen Movement Information” proposes to track each individual citizen’s movement in real time via cell phone signals, as reported on the http://translate.google.com/translate?js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&sl=zh-CN&tl=en&u=http://www.gov.cn/gzdt/2011-03/02/content_1814543.htm">Beijing Municipal People’s Government website (Google translated into English).

Li Guoguang, Deputy Director of Social Development believes that cellular location technology for real-time user tracking is an efficient way to establish a public information platform for travelling. Whenever a user switches on their phone, it will automatically transmit signals to the base station and the government can easily determine the user’s location and general direction. Using this data, combined with dynamic analysis, the staff will be able to target specific areas at different times and track the general flow of travel and population distribution.

Li Guoguang added that the next step is to provide the public with personalized reports so that they can be aware of the city’s traffic congestion and thereby choose the best alternate way to travel.

[dixiegrrrrl]

1. Question about cell phones, pls.

(I don't have or want one.)thus the question.

It sounds like you can be tracked even if you are not actually ON the phone, yes?

So, how can a user prevent that?

(Same with GPS in cars)


Anybody....????

[Duer 157099]

5. Remove the battery when not in use

that is the only way.

[WatsonT]

2. Seems all those conspiracy theorists

were right. At least in China.

[Occulus]

4. In the US, also.

Leo LaPorte talked about this on his Tech Guy podcast; seems that pen register requests (I think that's what they're called) a) do not require a warrant and b) are so prevalent some ISPs have dedicated web portals (available to law enforcement only, of course) to deal with the millions- yes, millions- of requests in the US each year.

No conspiracy theory necessary; law enforcement in the US has been doing this here for a number of years now. And yes, they most certainly can do it when your phone is turned off.

[Jkid]

3. There is a real motive with this. Political and Party security.

They'll be able to easily control dissent easily with this type of monitoring. The Chinese Ministry of Public Security (Read: Party Security) will be able to stop any dissent before it happens, like psychics.

It's like Minority Reports pre-crime, except without precogs you have actual technology.

[BeFree]

6. Not to worry

The US can't listen in on your calls. It is unconstitutional unless they have a judge's permission.

But, if you are still worried that 'they' may hunt you down, remove the battery from your phone when you are at least ten miles from home.