To the point: Tunnel vision
A new, serious problem is causing concern in Switzerland. Our beloved gadgets—smartphones, laptops, navigation systems, and even digital cameras—are giving us away. They can pinpoint our exact location to within a meter.
And even worse, they report it somewhere. In certain cases, this can save lives, but that is only of marginal interest. Much more serious seems to be the danger of our position data falling into the wrong hands. Maybe even to commercial companies that could do something with it. In the worst case, these could even be companies based abroad. The study "Geographical landmarks in the cyber world" by the Center for Technology Assessment (TA-Swiss), which was presented recently, warns against this.
The federal data protection officer Hanspeter Thür supports TASwiss' fears and, of course, states that there is an increasingly urgent need for action. As always, there is a call for effective political measures. They are supposed to fix it. A corresponding proposal has already been submitted to the National Council. Things are starting to turn around. The country needs new regulations and laws. Yes, indeed! The 360-degree all-round prevention and mentality machinery strikes once again. The citizen must be protected. State-imposed security versus self-responsibility. The almighty, benevolent state should please fix it. Don't get me wrong, dear readers. I am not against data protection. It is important. I'm just against this tunnel-vision attitude under the motto "commerce is fie. It is at least as important to be skeptical about a state that is interfering in more and more areas and patronizing more and more. I'm much more afraid of state surveillance than I am of getting an advertising message on my iPhone when I'm near a McDonald's. I'm just waiting for the state to intervene in more and more areas. I'm just waiting for some prevention specialist to come up with the idea that positioning data could be used for traffic monitoring or control. But there is very little talk of this in the whole discussion. And why should we, since the state is benevolent? Well timed, Google's new hit: indoor navigation. It is now to come to Switzerland as well. Android users will be able to get directions to shopping malls, among other things. What possibilities that opens up!
I am already curious about the reactions of our citizen protectors.
Pierre C. Meier, Editor-in-Chief
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