Location Tracking: Threat to User Privacy

How does Location Tracking Threaten User Privacy?
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How does Location Tracking Threaten User Privacy?
           Location tracking means following the movement of a subject and note the different locations along the path that the subjects take (Michael & Michael, 2011, p. 121). In modern technology, individuals can be tracked, even in real-time, through the use of online applications, devices, and other monitoring hardware. The development of location tracking technologies presented innovation in providing opportunities in monitoring movements of individuals that present's both benefits and harms to a user, especially with privacy concerns (Gruteser & Liu, 2004, p. 28). Throughout the years, privacy protection has made significant advances in developing legislation and regulations to protect personal data and other user information since many mitigating threats of different sectors use these data for cybercrime and hosting commercial and governmental exploits (Wright & Raab, 2014, p. 277). Therefore, the privacy of an individual should be protected. However, many global corporations and governments had made use of location tracking in their devices, especially in mobile phones, vehicles, and closed-circuit television (CCTV) systems to monitor the location of an individual. The most notable of which is the use of the global position system (GPS) to navigate the positioning awareness of the user but at the same time returns feedback of changes of location of the person to the GPS servers (Gruteser & Liu, 2004, p. 28). Some of the data gathered from the location tracking software are rationalized by companies as requirements to further improve the functionality of their devices, such as improving Google's Android phone location finder, improving the Wi-Fi access points, and improving bandwidth identification (Whalen, 2011, p. 61). 
Usually, the main challenge of location tracking is that more than three parties are involved in location-based technologies (Gruteser & Liu, 2004, p.28). The service provider and the user are the first two parties involve, while a third party is another entity, such as another corporation, a hacker, or even the government, that can use the information gathered by the service provider from the users (Gruteser & Liu, 2004, p.28). For instance, a car company can implement a deal with external services, such as hotel-finders, where the car service can use their built-in GPS to direct the user to the hotels that are within their network. However, a third party can have more drastic privacy breaches that can harm the user, such as cyberbullying, identity fraud, and identity theft (Bartsch & Dienlin, 2016, p. 152). Although many benefits of location-based monitoring can be acquired, such as finding the best routes and recovery of stolen gadgets, the implied consequences of location tracking can threaten the user's privacy because it exposes an individual to (1) crime exposure (tracking threat), (2) government surveillance (identification threat), and (3) surveillance capitalism (profiling threat). After these revealing the threats to location privacy of the people, stronger location privacy protection should be implemented to prevent further location privacy threats.
Categories of Location Privacy
According to Cremonini, Braghin, & Ardagna (2013), there are three categories of location privacy that the users have, which include identity privacy, position privacy, and path privacy. Identity privacy is the protection of the user's identification that can be inferred from location information, such as common establishments that the user goes to (Cremonini, Braghin, & Ardagna, 2013). On the other hand, position privacy is the protection against revealing the real-time location of the user (Cremonini, Braghin, & Ardagna, 2013). Lastly, path privacy is the protection associated with the user’s movement, such as the path that an individual is currently traveling or walking to prevent predicting their destinations (Cremonini, Braghin, & Ardagna, 2013).
Types of Location Privacy Threat
According to Gajjar (2017), there are three kinds of location privacy threats, which include tracking threat, identification threat, and profiling threat. Tracking threat is when the attacker or the tracker acquires updates on an individual’s location in real-time, so the tracker can find the current location of the user as well as predict the possible locations that an individual will travel (Gajjar, 2017, p. 234). Identification threat is when the tracker uses the location visited by an individual to identify the identity of the user (Gajjar, 2017, p. 234). Profiling threat is when the tracker can gather demographic characteristics to create a general description of an individual’s preferences, such as the preferred shopping centers or hospitals that the user is visiting (Gajjar, 2017, p.235).
Tracking Threat: Crime Exposure
One platform where location tracking is widely used is in social media websites, such as Facebook and Twitter. Social media websites have a widespread use globally in different sectors and domains of everyday life. Individuals use social networking to express their identity, political will, build a public image for an individual or organization, and even just show a place that they recently visited. Whatever it may the reason be, social media promote many possible uses that are limited only to the imagination of the user but social media also have a high risk of potential abuse, especially by terrorists, hackers, and other criminals to exploit the strength of social media platforms (Chung, 2016, p. 105). Most social media applications can gather the location of the user and make it publicly available, such as the current location of the users when they post a statement or a picture on the platform. However, the massive collection of these data in social media announces to the world the location of these people, especially those who are not currently at their home. This information is readily exploited and individuals are exposed to crime. Additionally, Chung (2016) revealed that terrorist groups and other extremists use the location tracking of social media platforms to spread harmful propaganda and recruit new individuals to spread their idealism at a strategic location (p. 105). These groups take advantage of the demographic data from the location tracking of the websites that further decreases the cybersecurity of the groups that are targeted by people with malicious intent.
Identification Threat: Government Surveillance
Many laws protect a citizen against unwanted surveillance of the government; however, most covert governmental programs, which include gathering private information of citizens, are not revealed to the public and challenged until they are discovered (Richards, 2013, p. 1934). Governments take advantage of the people’s lack of understanding of the importance of privacy and how government surveillance is harmful to the people (Richards, 2013, p. 1935). Because of the technological advancements in our society, the government had revolutionized the use of common technology such as the GPS transponders and even thermal scanners to track, observe, and monitor the actions of their citizens are a particular district, including the changes in their behavioral pattern (Richards, 2013, p. 1936). However, according to Richards (2013), the direct effect of these government used surveillance technologies can threaten the privacy of an individual that affects the exercise of an individual's civil liberties and the change of the power dynamic of the country in silencing activists and the critics of the government (p. 1935).
Infringement of Civil Liberties
Location tracking of the government can prevent the people to experiment with making and communicating new and controversial ideas that can hurt the government (Richards, 2013, p. 1935). In this case, intellectual privacy is prevented by location technologies to create individual beliefs that are inconsistent with the democratic processes of the government (Richards, 2013, p. 1935). For instance, if the government can track the location of anyone that deters from the belief of the government, no one would like to make any statement that can lead to harm; thus, infringing the civil liberties of a person, such as the freedom of speech and freedom of expression. For example, in China, the Chinese government uses the internet activity of an individual to detect and censor people who oppose official policy at a certain location (Richards, 2013, 1937). Additionally, Arab Spring uprisings are prevented by the government using the data from social media to track the location of revolts before it goes out of hand (Richards, 2013, 1937).
Silencing Activists, Critics, and Journalists
Added by Richards (2013), the government uses blackmail, discrimination, or persuasion to deter the actions of activists, critics, and journalists from countering the beliefs of the government (p. 1956). Blackmail is widely used to discredit the credibility of activists, critics, and journalists by revealing secrets and other embarrassing information that can destroy the reliability of the information that they hold (Richards, 2013, p. 1953). However, using location tracking, the whereabouts of the government's critics are easily found, so the government, specifically the police, can prosecute these people for some made-up crime to stop the expression of their ideas or discoveries (Richards, 2013, p. 1935). 
Profiling Threat: Surveillance Capitalism
According to Zuboff (2019), surveillance capitalism is the use of the collective information and private experiences of an individual and transform it into a fungible commodity that aims to improve the marketability of a product and increase profit (p. 1). In other words, companies use the human experience as raw material to predict the behavior of an individual to buy a product. Surveillance capitalism was invited by Google and further improved by Facebook in developing the best versions of targeted advertising to their users from selling the products of third-party companies in different market sectors (Zuboff, 2019, p.1)...