As modern location-tracking increases, ethical issues of privacy are a major concern for the upcoming generation. Although many individuals often neglect the importance of privacy and believe that they have “nothing to hide,” the impacts of location tracking should definitely be acknowledged.  However, this argument is not valid because privacy remains to be information that is protected for personal use and not be misused. Not only does location tracking reveal an individual’s location, but it also reveals the key insights on personal behaviors, finances, and common activities. In fact, these aspects are specifically targeted by advertising companies through geofencing. A location based tool is a location-based advanced tool that lets marketers send messages to smartphone clients in a characterized geographic region.

 

This allows companies to portray their advertisements directly onto user’s phones from a foot away! As absurd as this sounds, this is what many advertising companies pay a ton of money for, just to know the whereabouts of potential consumers. This is how the well-known travel app company, HotelTonight, offers discounts of nearby hotels its users based on their distance from hotels. Another example is how Facebook and Google use geofencing to allow businesses to showcase their advertisements based on locations. As you can see in this chart, both Google and Facebook’s ad targeting differences which are quite intrusive. Both companies use location and demographics to whirl in consumers. In BIA/Kelsey’s estimate for advertising on potential local consumers, reports that location-targeted portable advertisement spend will about triple from 2016 to 2021, from $12.4 billion to $33.3 billion.As you can see, these companies misuse the privacy of individuals for monetary purposes. However, privacy in location tracking is not only limited to advertising companies, it also opens the doors for burglars, stalkers, and hackers to be involved as well. This puts the lives of individuals at risk! In this video, it portrays the danger of downloading stalking apps that expose the user’s location without them knowing. Many of these stalking apps also lead to domestic violence cases which threaten the lives of individuals. Stalkers can easily hack into anyone’s devices, with just location tracking services. In this article, a GPS tracking company, Thinkrace, had exposed millions of user’s data which was available to hackers. As being one the biggest vendors for GPS tracking devices, this is completely foul!  Clearly privacy has become a huge issue and it’s very important for everyone to understand the issues in order for them to be protected and not have their information used against them.

 

Geofencing is also a danger in the political world. Political campaigns bring out a nightmare for citizens, with their improved ways of location tracking. Politicians try to gain as much information about their supporters through any means possible inorder to win elections. This is done by specific apps that users sign up to which allow access to their location data. This data then is sold to data brokers, but the chain does not stop here... These brokers tend to sell these locations to the highest bidders of politicians! Scary right? Our President even does this.. Donald Trump’s 2020 Campaign website allows “beacons” to track cell phone-locations. Beacons are wireless devices that can detect proximity of anyone’s location through bluetooth on their cell phones. This means that it is totally legal for Trump to gain access to his supporters locations. During Trump’s previous election in 2016, he targeted Catholics that go to church through geofencing in order to get more votes. This was specifically done by his previous campaign director, Steve Bannon, who even admitted to using geofencing to target individuals that have visited Catholic Churches in Iowa. This shows that he was targeting specific groups of people in order to gain victory. The issue with beacons is that they disrupt an individual's privacy, however, user’s must give permission in order for their information to be used.  Beacons are also very inexpensive, which means it is not hard for any politician to buy a ton. Many politicians have substantial amounts of money and will go by all means to buy whatever they can in order to help them win. With just the location on a user’s phone, these data brokers can easily determine all the personal parts of an individual like their name, address, and etc. Essentially, politicians just want to send out their campaigns repeatedly to people to vote for them by the use of location-tracking devices.