Minority Report, a movie premiering almost 10 years ago featured some great concepts. From touch-screen like interfaces that use gesture recognition to flexible displays; a lot of the gadgets Minority Report introduced have become part of our every day life. I could never have imagined also the more scary parts of the movie would someday become reality.
The most scary concept in Minority Report was the total lack of privacy and the idea that the government, or the police force would be able to predict your crimes and act on it. Planning on killing somebody? Don’t even think about it, ‘coz that act alone will result in a house call by your local law enforcement officer.
Yesterday, through the Dutch news, we learned that (at least in The Netherlands) this has to a certain extent also become reality! And, as opposed to the other gadgets from the movie, I find this pretty disturbing.
TomTom, the world-famous supplier of GPS navigation devices was in the news today for giving data collected from drivers to the police who in turn use these data to set up speed traps. Ouch!
In a damage control effort, Harold Goddijn, TomTom’s CEO quickyl said the company would make sure the use of data for purposes like these would in the future not be allowed anymore but this does beg for the question how to deal with data from mobile devices such as the TomTom.
As far as I’m concerned, when dealing with privacy and data gathered from individuals doing the stuff they do on an everyday basis (making phone calls, browsing websites, getting on trains and yes… hitting the gas pedal) one should be very careful. It should be treated as your data and you should be in total control who will and who won’t be using that data. Yes, I know the devil is in the details here, but the way TomTom has been treating our data is certainly not the way to go.
Tags: techniek
