The future of GPS may seem as if it cannot go any further, however, it is already expecting an upgrade by 2025. Known as GPS III, these new satellites will be three times more accurate than current GPS, slashing the previously stated sixteen foot inaccuracy range to a mere nine feet. This article portrays the effects of how these navigation devices with precise accuracy of location will now mean to users. While the author uses this as an advantage to GPS III, it actually reveals a scary reality that no one will be able to go anywhere without being followed by GPS signals. GPS III is not the only new innovation presenting itself as on November 9, 2019, SpaceX sent up 60 mini-satellites with plans for thousands more in the near future. The latest 60 satellites joined the 60 previously sent up in May. Elon Musk, the creator of Space X, is attempting to have a more powerful presence in the internet market, ideally monopolizing 3 to 5 percent of the global internet market (a share value of $30 billion a year). He plans on launching 30,000 more satellites, which is a troubling thought to scientists as space pollution and satellite collision will become more of an issue. Yet, there are not only environmental consequences to these. Musk is showcasing an idea that outer space can be commercialized, it will not be long before other companies develop their own satellites to send into space to become a part of the digital market. The concern now is that these satellites have the ability to be GPS transmitters and give any individual location directly to the company with their own satellite. The AirForce was previously the sole owners of GPS satellites, but now companies will not even need to be  cunning to get consumers information, they can simply generate it themselves. 

 

The innovation of GPS is not the only thing that can develop in the future. The ethics and our definition of privacy can also be at risk through the future of location tracking. One specifically that has been recognized recently is the use of it to control a pandemic. The idea of social distancing is a half-efforted attempt to solve the Coronavirus that fully attempts to protect our privacy. Some people believe to save ourselves from the pandemic, we need to change our definition of privacy by allowing our locations to be traced so that we can track the virus and who it has been around.  With the Coronavirus spreading at rapid rates, some countries have used location services as a way to track where infected citizens have been. In China, they took advantage of this by partnering with a popular wallet app, Alipay, and having citizens colorized by green, yellow, or red to indicate their health status. There has been little official ruling on how the classifications are given out, but the app does acquire user’s personal data, including their location, city name, and identifying code. It was revealed all of this data is involved in a piece of the program labeled “reportInfoandLocationToPolice.” This app has been implemented throughout several cities in China and is being pushed by the government to be implemented in all of them. The purpose of this is to analyze the data and see how much of a contagion risk each person is. Green indicated unrestricted movement, yellow indicates stay home for seven days, and red indicated a two week quarantine. People are forced to show and scan their Alipay health status anywhere they go to ensure they are not a risk of spreading the disease even further. These scans give the government a clear path of where users have been. Many support the initiative believing that it is keeping citizens safe and controlling the virus, however, these tactics could be here to stay after the pandemic ends. The data collected during the pandemic does not erase nor does China have any obligation to stop enforcing the app.Other countries, including Singapore, Israel, and South Korea, are also taking location tracking into their attempts to combat Coronavirus. While these countries are similar to China in their authoritarian rule, western nations are also considering this option as well.

As for the Western take on location tracking regarding COVID-19, things are not looking too pretty. The U.S. government is analyzing geolocation data from people across 500 cities in order to “track” the spread of COVID-19. The goal of this is to see how many Americans have the disease and to make sure they are under quarantine in order to stop the spread of this pandemic. However, is this ethical to strip information for health and safety measures? In this survey conducted by the Technology 202 Network, 51% of tech experts voted that the U.S. should NOT use location data in order to limit the spread of the coronavirus. Tracking location from cell phones does not give enough evidence that a person is infected with the disease. Instead, experts are assuming based on their locations. This does not seem reasonable! American companies like Google and Apple are looking into methods of creating tracking apps like, “Tracetogether'' based in Singapore, which uses Bluetooth to track locations. Google and Apple have followed through with bringing this type of app to America by announcing their plans for a coronavirus tracking system on April 10th, 2020, which runs on the idea of bringing contact tracing into our everyday lives. Contact tracing involves using bluetooth transmission to share data with apps from approved healthcare organizations. This system would alert anyone who downloaded the app if they had been in close contact with an infected person.  Apple and Google claim that they will make the data anonymous so that it does not disrupt privacy. However, they will still have a hold on the personal data even if it is anonymous! Many have brought into question what the lifecycle span of this data will be. If it can be held long term, this is certainly something that Apple and Google can use to create a collection of data that they can give to their third-party sources to obtain even more information, which means now user’s data is also available to other parties. The United States is using this as a measure of surveillance by invading their citizen’s privacy. It has been acknowledged that people have built a certain expectation of privacy, however in tragic times like this, the government seems to override these expectations.