I think the first commenter on the site said it all :
"the systematic exploitation of private personal information by corporations and government is the modus operandi of a surveillance / police state.
Already this is being abused for corporate espionage, political benefit, and a host of criminal enterprises.
The manufactured pretext that all these erosions of privacy are ok because "we found bad guys" has been the same bogus justification for every single abuse known to history.
A simple extension of this illegal principle in practice means privacy and Constitutionally protected rights are null and void.
Jobs! Fraud! Crime!
"We'll keep you safe!" "We'll save insurance companies money!" "We'll catch criminals!"
They don't mention that they'll abuse this in an untold array of intrusions and privacy violations... for their commercial and political benefit."
Although I'm very much miffed by the excessive surveillance of every country these days I don't find this to be the same. Companies and organizations do have the right to check up on people's activities in some manner. If your car wasn't paid for and it belongs to the bank now, I think the bank has the right to know where it is to repossess it. I think this is one of the ugly truths of reality rather than a matter of abusive behavior.
But if your car was paid for can they store the information about the time/location they saw it? Can they sell that information? What if there were enough of these devices out there that your information was updated every 10 minutes when you were on the road?
I wouldn't object to the scan but the storage of the data is a different matter.
"Companies and organizations do have the right to check up on people's activities in some manner. If your car wasn't paid for and it belongs to the bank now, I think the bank has the right to know where it is to repossess it."
What you are referring to is part of the agreement you make with the lender in which you agree to keep them updated on changes of address, a violation of which they have constitutionally legal methods to address.
So please, elaborate on why you think lenders have a right, beyond the normal legal and reasonable updates of contact information, to "check up on" my activities in any way whatsoever.
This sort of slippery slope reasoning that is very, very dangerous for the peoples rights.
Ignoring the legal issues, I believe we have to come back to the old analogy of Global Village that illustrates the coming reality.
Imagine living in a village a hundred years ago. There is no practical anonymity, everybody knows who you are, what you do, and they tend to share many parts of what they know. The shopkeeper knows all your purchasing habits, the bored old lady living on the corner knows where everybody is going at what times, and if you buy condoms then the pharmacist likely knows with whom you'll be using them. If you'd get judged by a jury of your peers, they would know you and the witnesses since birth, and take all of it into account.
Like it or not, I feel that this is the social model that our changing capabilities will bring - and it's not entirely a disaster; for pretty much all time the civilization was like this, the anonymous faceless metropolis is just a recent change; and USA constitution was already written for an environment like that, and not the current (temporary?) one.
"the systematic exploitation of private personal information by corporations and government is the modus operandi of a surveillance / police state.
Already this is being abused for corporate espionage, political benefit, and a host of criminal enterprises.
The manufactured pretext that all these erosions of privacy are ok because "we found bad guys" has been the same bogus justification for every single abuse known to history.
A simple extension of this illegal principle in practice means privacy and Constitutionally protected rights are null and void.
Jobs! Fraud! Crime!
"We'll keep you safe!" "We'll save insurance companies money!" "We'll catch criminals!"
They don't mention that they'll abuse this in an untold array of intrusions and privacy violations... for their commercial and political benefit."