Using GPS to Track a Particular Person Essay -- Global Positioning Sys

Using GPS to Track a Particular Person Introduction Often times its hard to imagine how the world survived without cell phones. Its an automatic response, when you see a car accident you take out your cell phone and dial for help, or when a child is waiting for a ride they will call their parents to see how far away they are. It is a great convenience for society to be able to do such things. Imagine if you didn't even have to call somebody to find out where they were. It may seem like a futuristic idea, humanity being capable of such mind reading; however, the advancement of GPS, global positioning systems, those ideas are coming to life in the present. GPS is a way to track one's position at anytime. This is done through the use of satellites monitored by stations on the ground. There are signals transmitted from a given satellite to the receiver on Earth. It is this information that gives precise location to one's whereabouts. Although this service sounds quite convenient and has its obvious benefits, there are other issues to be considered. For example, many ethical dilemmas that play from privacy issues. In a world when at one time you could take a walk to remove yourself from the eye of another, we not may be under constant supervision of sorts. Tracking devises are easily placed in many things, cell phones, which are used by nearly all people in today's American society, are the recent and most wide spread target for GPS. Is it ethical to track someone through an everyday devices such as a cell phone, is tracking people ethical in itself? These are the questions that must be resolved before we can celebrate the positives of such technological advancements. What is GPS GPS stands for global positioning syste... ...://www.mercat.com/QUEST/HowWorks.htm> 11.<http://www.gpscity.com/gps/brados/0971.1.2743342731310439294/privacy.html> 12.CNet Networks ZDNet. 2003. <http://reviews-zdnet.com.com/AnchorDesk/4520-7298_16- 4208024.html> . 13.How Stuff Works, Inc. 1998-2003. Media Network: A convex company. <http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/gps1.htm> 14. George A. Chidi Jr., Qualcomm turns Cell Phones into GPS Systems. 16 Jan 2002. < http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,80085,00.asp> 15.Tsai, Tsungming. Visualizing Terrain and Navigation Data. U.S. Department of Technology, Administration, National Institute of Standards and Technology, 2001. 16.Corr, O. Casey. "Money from thin air : the story of Craig McCaw, the visionary who invented the cell phone industry, and his next billion-dollar idea". New York : Crown Business, 2000.