Another ethical concern with location-tracking is control. Who exactly has control of our information? It would be easy to blame the government, however federal law does not regulate any type of law with location-tracking, therefore, the government does not control all our information. There are certain aspects that law enforcement that control data such as monitoring criminals with use of ankle bracelets for house arrest. This is done to prevent any further destruction or crimes. As a form of supervision, this seems quite reasonable. In England and Wales, over 60,000 criminals wear electronic GPS tags to track their whereabouts. This is done to monitor the offender’s behavior and avoid any violence. However, this still does not answer the question of who has major control of location data. It seems that the multinational technology company, Google, plays a crucial role in tailoring individual’s location data. Through Google’s feature, Location History, tracks every movement and stores it into the Sensorvault, a database which can be accessed by law enforcement. Now this is definitely a concern, because if a crime occurred and if an individual was near it. They would be called in for questioning just based on their location. 

As you can see in this video, the police have located every device near a crime scene before. This is definitely something to be worried about! Another major company that tailors location data is Apple. Recently, Apple revealed that they exposed user’s locations in their new iPhone 11’s. As a company that was faced in a prior scandal in 2011 and proclaimed that they do not track the location of iPhones because their data is “anonymous and encrypted,” clearly has outdone themselves again. Facebook also plays a manipulative role in this area. Facebook has recently admitted to tracking its users even if they have turned off their location services! As extreme as this sounds, unfortunately it is true. The company keeps track of user’s locations in order to promote advertisements that they fund off of. This just shows that companies cannot be trusted with our private information and are losing credibility day by day.