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The use of GPS Fleet Management, also known as Vehicle Tracking or Vehicle Telematics, is increasingly common in today’s business environment, both in the private and public sectors.

As the use of GPS Location technology has developed and become more widespread, so has the scope of its use widened. Once the domain of the Fleet Manager used as part of Vehicle Tracking system, GPS Location technology has now extended beyond the fleet department and into the hands, literally, of non-vehicle based staff.

Many organizations with a reliance on a vehicle based workforce have invested in GPS Vehicle Tracking technology to help administer a number of functions related to fleet and driver management, including: Vehicle journey time calculations, Vehicle mileage monitoring, Route planning, two way messaging, Driver behaviour analysis, Fuel usage reporting, Vehicle Service Scheduling and Job Schedule Adherence reporting.

Being able to monitor the real-time location of vehicles across a fleet, means organizations are now more able to respond dynamically to changing events and meet the increased expectations of their customers. Assigning the nearest available fleet asset, based on actual and accurate information produced by a vehicle tracking system improves response times and improves customer service levels.

The advent of person based GPS Tracking can complement existing Vehicle Tracking systems and ensure that non-vehicle based mobile personnel, such Street Cleaners, Park Rangers or Community Support Officers can now also be efficiently deployed, based on precise and accurate Location information.

Increasingly defined rules and guidelines pertaining to employers responsibilities under Health and Safety and Duty of Care legislation, means the benefits of this technology is increasingly being as much more than just a tool used to increase efficiency and productivity.

Advice published by both the HSE and Business link says that if you employ lone workers, you have the same responsibilities for their health and safety as for any other employees. You may, however, need to take extra precautions to ensure lone workers are at no greater risk than your other employees.

What is a Lone Worker? According to the same advice, a lone worker is anybody who works alone. The term itself makes is quite clear. The advice continues; A Lone Worker can include; self-employed people and employees who work away from their business base. This occurs in a wide range of business activities, such as transport, construction, maintenance and repair.

In addition to being a tool that provides a location and journey history, Lone Worker GPS Tracking devices, now also serve as personal security devices and include the ability to make and receive voice calls, send a Panic Alarm, which when pressed, transmits an Alarm message with the precise location of the device carrier. Many units also include a Motion Sensor which transmits an alert location if the carrier falls, is lying prone and perhaps requires emergency assistance.

Businesses and organizations, who may have initially introduced GPS Location technology such as vehicle tracking, primarily to maximize the efficient use of their fleet and drivers, are now finding that GPS Location and Tracking technology can also help them meet their other duties and responsibilities.

FBI agents obtained logs from mobile phone companies corresponding to what their cellular towers had recorded at the time of a dozen different bank robberies in the Dallas area. The voluminous records showed that two phones had made calls around the time of all 12 heists, and that those phones belonged to men named Tony Hewitt and Corey Duffey. A jury eventually convicted the duo of multiple bank robbery and weapons charges.

Even though police are tapping into the locations of mobile phones thousands of times a year, the legal ground rules remain unclear, and federal privacy laws written a generation ago are ambiguous at best. On Friday, the first federal appeals court to consider the topic will hear oral arguments (PDF) in a case that could establish new standards for locating wireless devices.

In that case, the Obama administration has argued that warrantless tracking is permitted because Americans enjoy no “reasonable expectation of privacy” in their–or at least their cell phones’–whereabouts. U.S. Department of Justice lawyers say that “a customer’s Fourth Amendment rights are not violated when the phone company reveals to the government its own records” that show where a mobile device placed and received calls.

Those claims have alarmed the ACLU and other civil liberties groups, which have opposed the Justice Department’s request and plan to tell the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia that Americans’ privacy deserves more protection and judicial oversight than what the administration has proposed.

“This is a critical question for privacy in the 21st century,” says Kevin Bankston, an attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation who will be arguing on Friday. “If the courts do side with the government, that means that everywhere we go, in the real world and online, will be an open book to the government unprotected by the Fourth Amendment.”

Not long ago, the concept of tracking cell phones would have been the stuff of spy movies. In 1998’s “Enemy of the State,” Gene Hackman warned that the National Security Agency has “been in bed with the entire telecommunications industry since the ’40s–they’ve infected everything.” After a decade of appearances in “24″ and “Live Free or Die Hard,” location-tracking has become such a trope that it was satirized in a scene with Seth Rogen from “Pineapple Express” (2008).

Once a Hollywood plot, now ‘commonplace’
Whether state and federal police have been paying attention to Hollywood, or whether it was the other way around, cell phone tracking has become a regular feature in criminal investigations. It comes in two forms: police obtaining retrospective data kept by mobile providers for their own billing purposes that may not be very detailed, or prospective data that reveals the minute-by-minute location of a handset or mobile device.

Obtaining location details is now “commonplace,” says Al Gidari, a partner in the Seattle offices of Perkins Coie who represents wireless carriers. “It’s in every pen register order these days.”

Gidari says that the Third Circuit case could have a significant impact on police investigations within the court’s jurisdiction, namely Delaware, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania; it could be persuasive beyond those states. But, he cautions, “if the privacy groups win, the case won’t be over. It will certainly be appealed.”

CNET was the first to report on prospective tracking in a 2005 news article. In a subsequent Arizona case, agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration tracked a tractor trailer with a drug shipment through a GPS-equipped Nextel phone owned by the suspect. Texas DEA agents have used cell site information in real time to locate a Chrysler 300M driving from Rio Grande City to a ranch about 50 miles away. Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile logs showing the location of mobile phones at the time calls became evidence in a Los Angeles murder trial.

And a mobile phone’s fleeting connection with a remote cell tower operated by Edge Wireless is what led searchers to the family of the late James Kim, a CNET employee who died in the Oregon wilderness in 2006 after leaving a snowbound car to seek help.

“This is a critical question for privacy in the 21st century. If the courts do side with the government, that means that everywhere we go, in the real world and online, will be an open book to the government unprotected by the Fourth Amendment.”
–Kevin Bankston, attorney, Electronic Frontier Foundation
The way tracking works is simple: mobile phones are miniature radio transmitters and receivers. A cellular tower knows the general direction of a mobile phone (many cell sites have three antennas pointing in different directions), and if the phone is talking to multiple towers, triangulation yields a rough location fix. With this method, accuracy depends in part on the density of cell sites.

The Federal Communications Commission’s “Enhanced 911″ (E911) requirements allowed rough estimates to be transformed into precise coordinates. Wireless carriers using CDMA networks, such as Verizon Wireless and Sprint Nextel, tend to use embedded GPS technology to fulfill E911 requirements. AT&T and T-Mobile comply with E911 regulations using network-based technology that computes a phone’s location using signal analysis and triangulation between towers.

T-Mobile, for instance, uses a GSM technology called Uplink Time Difference of Arrival, or U-TDOA, which calculates a position based on precisely how long it takes signals to reach towers. A company called TruePosition, which provides U-TDOA services to T-Mobile, boasts of “accuracy to under 50 meters” that’s available “for start-of-call, midcall, or when idle.”

A 2008 court order to T-Mobile in a criminal investigation of a marriage fraud scheme, which was originally sealed and later made public, says: “T-Mobile shall disclose at such intervals and times as directed by (the Department of Homeland Security), latitude and longitude data that establishes the approximate positions of the Subject Wireless Telephone, by unobtrusively initiating a signal on its network that will enable it to determine the locations of the Subject Wireless Telephone.”

‘No reasonable expectation of privacy’
In the case that’s before the Third Circuit on Friday, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, or ATF, said it needed historical (meaning stored, not future) phone location information because a set of suspects “use their wireless telephones to arrange meetings and transactions in furtherance of their drug trafficking activities.”

U.S. Magistrate Judge Lisa Lenihan in Pennsylvania denied the Justice Department’s attempt to obtain stored location data without a search warrant; prosecutors had invoked a different legal procedure. Lenihan’s ruling, in effect, would require police to obtain a search warrant based on probable cause–a more privacy-protective standard.

Lenihan’s opinion (PDF)–which, in an unusual show of solidarity, was signed by four other magistrate judges–noted that location information can reveal sensitive information such as health treatments, financial difficulties, marital counseling, and extra-marital affairs.

In its appeal to the Third Circuit, the Justice Department claims that Lenihan’s opinion “contains, and relies upon, numerous errors” and should be overruled. In addition to a search warrant not being necessary, prosecutors said, because location “records provide only a very general indication of a user’s whereabouts at certain times in the past, the requested cell-site records do not implicate a Fourth Amendment privacy interest.”

The Obama administration is not alone in making this argument. U.S. District Judge William Pauley, a Clinton appointee in New York, wrote in a 2009 opinion that a defendant in a drug trafficking case, Jose Navas, “did not have a legitimate expectation of privacy in the cell phone” location. That’s because Navas only used the cell phone “on public thoroughfares en route from California to New York” and “if Navas intended to keep the cell phone’s location private, he simply could have turned it off.”

(Most cases have involved the ground rules for tracking cell phone users prospectively, and judges have disagreed over what legal rules apply. Only a minority has sided with the Justice Department, however.)

Cellular providers tend not to retain moment-by-moment logs of when each mobile device contacts the tower, in part because there’s no business reason to store the data, and in part because the storage costs would be prohibitive. They do, however, keep records of what tower is in use when a call is initiated or answered–and those records are generally stored for six months to a year, depending on the company.

Verizon Wireless keeps “phone records including cell site location for 12 months,” Drew Arena, Verizon’s vice president and associate general counsel for law enforcement compliance, said at a federal task force meeting in Washington, D.C. last week. Arena said the company keeps “phone bills without cell site location for seven years,” and stores SMS text messages for only a very brief time.

Gidari, the Seattle attorney, said that wireless carriers have recently extended how long they store this information. “Prior to a year or two ago when location-based services became more common, if it were 30 days it would be surprising,” he said.

The ACLU, EFF, the Center for Democracy and Technology, and University of San Francisco law professor Susan Freiwald argue that the wording of the federal privacy law in question allows judges to require the level of proof required for a search warrant “before authorizing the disclosure of particularly novel or invasive types of information.” In addition, they say, Americans do not “knowingly expose their location information and thereby surrender Fourth Amendment protection whenever they turn on or use their cell phones.”

“The biggest issue at stake is whether or not courts are going to accept the government’s minimal view of what is protected by the Fourth Amendment,” says EFF’s Bankston. “The government is arguing that based on precedents from the 1970s, any record held by a third party about us, no matter how invasively collected, is not protected by the Fourth Amendment.”

Update 10:37 a.m. PT: A source inside the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the northern district of Texas, which prosecuted the Scarecrow Bandits mentioned in the above article, tells me that this was the first and the only time that the FBI has used the location-data-mining technique to nab bank robbers. It’s also worth noting that the leader of this gang, Corey Duffey, was sentenced last month to 354 years (not months, but years) in prison. Another member is facing 140 years in prison.

February 4, 2010 Bilthoven, Netherlands – FindWhere, February 4, 2010 Bilthoven, Netherlands – FindWhere, a pioneer and global leader of mobile phone-centric security and safety services, announced today that it has licensed the iFind Mobile solution to International SOS to provide real-time locations when they are most needed around the world.

iFind Mobile, which is controlled via a proven, web-based tracking panel and network operating center, can be installed on any GPS-enabled GSM phone. The unique solution gives individuals and companies peace of mind since it can identify someone’s location instantly via their mobile phone, thus supporting duty of care especially for individuals working alone or in far-flung places. Also, iFind Mobile enables recovery of a misplaced or stolen phone and provides excellent security of the data on the phone.

The licensing of iFind Mobile to International SOS and the integration of our Managed Services, using a standard XML API, to their Incident Management Center is a perfect example of advanced Location Based Services,” said Jaap Groot, CEO and Founder of FindWhere. “We expect these types of safety- and security-centric solutions on mobile phones to become widely embraced since they provide real value when needed and have minimal impact on the phones everyday functions..

With iFind Mobile, we will be able to provide our clients who have the Incident Management Center solution with enhanced services that enable them to act proactively and respond with increased geographical accuracy,” says Tim Daniel, Group Executive Vice President of International SOS. “The integration of FindWhere’s Managed Services with our Integrated Management Center is a unique example of our commitment to provide state-of-the-art solutions whenever and wherever they are needed. .

About FindWhere:
Founded in 2002, FindWhere (http://www.findwhere.com/) has transformed the complexity of advanced GPS, satellite mapping, and wireless communication into down-to-earth, straightforward precision tracking and location services. FindWhere delivers advanced features and functionality in an accurate and easy to use solution that offers partners proven and scalable location centric services in knowing the location of their customers. Businesses improve their duty of care for lone workers and increase their bottom line with remote workforce management. FindWhere partners with enterprises and institutions worldwide to provide location solutions that are easily integrated within existing applications

FindWhere is led by a team of veteran executives with extensive wireless, sales and marketing, business development and operational expertise working together to deliver peace of mind solutions. FindWhere is a private company located in Bilthoven, The Netherlands.

About International SOS:
Operating in over 70 countries, International SOS (http://www.internationalsos.com) helps organizations manage the health and security risks facing their travelers and international expatriates. Using its worldwide network of alarm centers, clinics, and over 55,000 health and logistics providers, the company offers local expertise, preventative advice, and emergency assistance during critical illness, accident, or civil unrest. International SOS provides medical and security information services, medical consulting, staffing support, occupational healthcare, and healthcare management services globally. In 2008 the company handled over 1,000,000 cases, including nearly 18,000 evacuations. International SOS works in partnership with businesses, governments and non-governmental organizations and currently provides key services to 83 percent of the Fortune Global 100 companies. Working in some of the most inhospitable places on earth, International SOS offers international standards of medical care where it is not available or where cultural and language barriers exist.

Contacts:

Jaap Groot
FindWhere
+31 302293004

jaap.groot@findwhere.com

Megan Moran
On behalf of International SOS
+1 202-828-5068
meghan.moran@fleishman.com

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“Consumer mobile applications and services are no longer the prerogative of mobile carriers,” said Sandy Shen, research director at Gartner. “The increasing consumer interest in smartphones, the participation of Internet players in the mobile space, and the emergence of application stores and cross-industry services are reducing the dominance of mobile carriers. Each player will influence how the application is delivered and experienced by consumers, who ultimately vote with their attention and spending power.”

“The ultimate competition between industry players is for control of the ‘ecosystem’ and user experience, and the owner of the ecosystem will benefit the most in terms of revenue and user loyalty,” Ms. Shen said. “We predict that most users will use no more than five mobile applications at a time and most future opportunities will come from niche market ‘killer applications’.”

The top 10 consumer mobile applications in 2012 will include:

No. 1: Money Transfer
This service allows people to send money to others using Short Message Service (SMS). Its lower costs, faster speed and convenience compared with traditional transfer services have strong appeal to users in developing markets, and most services signed up several million users within their first year. However, challenges do exist in both regulatory and operational risks. Because of the fast growth of mobile money transfer, regulators in many markets are piling in to investigate the impact on consumer costs, security, fraud and money laundering. On the operational side, market conditions vary, as do the local resources of service providers, so providers need different market strategies when entering a new territory.

No. 2: Location-Based Services
Location-based services (LBS) form part of context-aware services, a service that Gartner expects will be one of the most disruptive in the next few years. Gartner predicts that the LBS user base will grow globally from 96 million in 2009 to more than 526 million in 2012. LBS is ranked No. 2 in Gartner’s top 10 because of its perceived high user value and its influence on user loyalty. Its high user value is the result of its ability to meet a range of needs, ranging from productivity and goal fulfillment to social networking and entertainment.

No. 3: Mobile Search
The ultimate purpose of mobile search is to drive sales and marketing opportunities on the mobile phone. To achieve this, the industry first needs to improve the user experience of mobile search so that people will come back again. Mobile search is ranked No. 3 because of its high impact on technology innovation and industry revenue. Consumers will stay loyal to some search services, but instead of sticking to one or two search providers on the Internet, Gartner expects loyalty on the mobile phone to be shared between a few search providers that have unique technologies for mobile search.

No. 4: Mobile Browsing
Mobile browsing is a widely available technology present on more than 60 percent of handsets shipped in 2009, a percentage Gartner expects to rise to approximately 80 percent in 2013. Gartner has ranked mobile browsing No. 4 because of its broad appeal to all businesses. Mobile Web systems have the potential to offer a good return on investment. They involve much lower development costs than native code, reuse many existing skills and tools, and can be agile — both delivered and updated quickly. Therefore, the mobile Web will be a key part of most corporate business-to-consumer (B2C) mobile strategies.

No. 5: Mobile Health Monitoring
Mobile health monitoring is the use of IT and mobile telecommunications to monitor patients remotely, and could help governments, care delivery organizations (CDOs) and healthcare payers reduce costs related to chronic diseases and improve the quality of life of their patients. In developing markets, the mobility aspect is key as mobile network coverage is superior to fixed network in the majority of developing countries. Currently, mobile health monitoring is at an early stage of market maturity and implementation, and project rollouts have so far been limited to pilot projects. In the future, the industry will be able to monetize the service by offering mobile healthcare monitoring products, services and solutions to CDOs.

No. 6: Mobile Payment
Mobile payment usually serves three purposes. First, it is a way of making payment when few alternatives are available. Second, it is an extension of online payment for easy access and convenience. Third, it is an additional factor of authentication for enhanced security. Mobile payment made Gartner’s top 10 list because of the number of parties it affects — including mobile carriers, banks, merchants, device vendors, regulators and consumers — and the rising interest from both developing and developed markets. Because of the many choices of technologies and business models, as well as regulatory requirements and local conditions, mobile payment will be a highly fragmented market. There will not be standard practices of deployment, so parties will need to find a working solution on a case-by-case basis.

No. 7: Near Field Communication Services
Near field communication (NFC) allows contactless data transfer between compatible devices by placing them close to each other, within ten centimeters. The technology can be used, for example, for retail purchases, transportation, personal identification and loyalty cards. NFC is ranked No. 7 in Gartner’s top ten because it can increase user loyalty for all service providers, and it will have a big impact on carriers’ business models. However, its biggest challenge is reaching business agreement between mobile carriers and service providers, such as banks and transportation companies. Gartner expects to see large-scale deployments starting from late 2010, when NFC phones are likely to ship in volume, with Asia leading deployments followed by Europe and North America.

No. 8: Mobile Advertising
Mobile advertising in all regions is continuing to grow through the economic downturn, driven by interest from advertisers in this new opportunity and by the increased use of smartphones and the wireless Internet. Total spending on mobile advertising in 2008 was $530.2 million, which Gartner expects to will grow to $7.5 billion in 2012. Mobile advertising makes the top 10 list because it will be an important way to monetize content on the mobile Internet, offering free applications and services to end users. The mobile channel will be used as part of larger advertising campaigns in various media, including TV, radio, print and outdoors.

No. 9: Mobile Instant Messaging
Price and usability problems have historically held back adoption of mobile instant messaging (IM), while commercial barriers and uncertain business models have precluded widespread carrier deployment and promotion. Mobile IM is on Gartner’s top 10 list because of latent user demand and market conditions that are conducive to its future adoption. It has a particular appeal to users in developing markets that may rely on mobile phones as their only connectivity device. Mobile IM presents an opportunity for mobile advertising and social networking, which have been built into some of the more advanced mobile IM clients.

No. 10: Mobile Music
Mobile music so far has been disappointing — except for ring tones and ring-back tones, which have turned into a multibillion-dollar service. On the other hand, it is unfair to dismiss the value of mobile music, as consumers want music on their phones and to carry it around. We see efforts by various players in coming up with innovative models, such as device or service bundles, to address pricing and usability issues. iTunes makes people pay for music, which shows that a superior user experience does make a difference.

FindWhere’s unique tracking solutions : give government, businesses and consumers the security of always knowing the location and logistic real time, or historical, information for any asset, trailer, cargo, vehicle or lone worker type of service. iFind tracking devices can be installed stand alone, using an internal battery, or connected to external power. The proven web based tracking panel provides fleet managers, dispatchers, consumers and emergency response centers with features that include panic alerts, speeding, safe zone, interval based locations, GPS failover, battery safe options and many more.

“We’re excited about our new reseller, GPS Discounter, knowing it will allow users to purchase tracking devices at prices never seen before. Alike the navigation market where TomTom and Garmin have come down substantially in pricing we expect the same to happen in the GPS Tracking market”, commented Jaap Groot, CEO and Founder of FindWhere. “We expect GPS-Discounter to do what they do best and have done before in other online stores; compete at unbeatable pricing levels driven by volume, backed by FindWhere’s proven tracking services and support. As an introduction the pricing of an annual subscription will include the device, the wireless subscription and use of FindWhere’s online panel.”

Where everyone else charges at least $ 99.00 for a device and $ 49.95 per month for unlimited tracking the GPS Discounter offer is $ 1.37 per day for an annual unlimited subscription INCLUDING the iFind 2000 tracker, that is $ 499.00 per year all inclusive. Next to this introduction offer currently there are two other specials: a Personal Security device, the iFind 1000, and the absolute top of the range iFind 3000 for Private Investigators and Cargo Tracking. Standard service plans start at $ 14.95 per month. All of the devices sold are integrated with FindWhere’s state of the art tracking panel and supported by a company with a proven track record.

Approved to provide the best GPS devices in security, for a variety of applications

November 30, 2009 Bilthoven, Netherlands – FindWhere, a pioneer and global leader of GPS device and Mobile Phone centric security and safety services, announced today that it has received approvals from Sold Secure (UK) and NTRA (Egypt) for it’s iFind tracking device iFind 900Q.

FindWhere’s unique tracking solutions give government, businesses and consumers the security of always knowing the location and logistic real time, or historical, information for any asset, trailer, cargo, vehicle or lone worker type of service. iFind tracking devices can be installed stand alone, using an internal battery, or connected to external power.

Testimonial

As a licensed private investigator for the past 18 years, I have used a number of different GPS Devices and Services before finally using the Findwhere GPS system.

The cases that we work on offer virtually no margin for error. It is critical that the GPS units we place on vehicles are RELIABLE, AFFORDABLE and that the website interface is USER FRIENDLY and FAST. Findwhere is all 4!

After having used countless other GPS units, I have found that the Findwhere GPS Locating System is the best in market. The battery life, signal reliability, and website interface is the best out there and believe me, as a Private Investigator, I have “shopped around” and used other systems.

I recommend, without reservation, the Findwhere GPS System to anyone who needs a reliable coverage that’s easy to use and at a very competetive price.

Respectfully,

Patrick R. Schneemann
Western Investigatoins
www.westernpi.com