Thank you for your long and interesting response, but I suspect there
is some wishful thinking going on here.
The technology is there to track people on a large scale - the fact
that it is a popular application to track kids makes this self evident.
The safeguards are "legal" at best - at worst, "company
policy" (KDDI's policy to require user consent).
If the PSIA (JP Public Security Intelligence Bureau) decide that they
want this, then exactly how much of a fuss would KDDI put up?
(I had the PSIA on my doorstep a couple of times a few years ago - a
comical story I will not bore the list with. They are that most
frightening of all types of state security organ. Utterly incompetent
and very solemn. They were looking for - I quote their words, not
mine - "Muslim terrorists". In bars!)
I used to work for one of the UK big 4 banks - and we too had very
clear policies about not sharing data with 3rd parties, backed up by
the data protection act. But, I was reliably informed (I did security
and control audit's for a while on info systems.) that these were
wholly ignored (this is 15 years ago) if the police made an informal
approach.
So no, I don't think we will see an app making it's way to market.
But since the tech is there, and the safeguards at best "legal", and
Japan is currently considering laws to upgrade their systems for the
control of foreigners (with a view to relaxing immigration
presumably) I would be astonished if this was NOT implemented.
Of course, nothing like that could ever happen in the US.
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?
sid=05/10/29/1313222&tid=158&tid=103&tid=17
I don't wish to seem paranoid, but in 3 years time we ARE all going
to be walking around with IC chips in our Toerag cards, with keitai
that can be pinged to see where we are, lots more nama-gaijin in
Japan possibly raising tensions with the locals and the only thing
preventing the PSIA/Drugs Squad/Yaks (if the police have access to
it, the yaks have access to it - simple as that) from using/abusing
the system is KDDI (and Docomatose and Voda)'s sense of propriety...
Damn - I'm even frightening myself.
Where's my tin foil sleeping bag....
Nick
PS - in this brave new world, will PHS be exempt? I sense a sudden
upsurge of interest in wifi PDA.
Glossary for non-JP-residents: "Toerag card" - gaikokujin-toroku-
shomei-shou. Must be carried at all time, IC version coming "real
soon now", contains full immigration/status record since you last
"lost" it, plus, embarrasingly, list of wives.
Nama-gaijin. New foreigners. As distinct from natto-gaijin, who have
been here for years and tend to have had their corners rubbed off.
On 29 Oct 2005, at 10:40, Scott Judson wrote:
> believe me, the
> applications go through a very rigorous checking by KDDI before
> they can get
> anywhere near their customers, so don't expect some kind of cloak
> and dagger
> tracking application to make it to market without the user knowing
> they are
> being tracked.
>
Received on Sun Oct 30 18:19:11 2005