The FCC's invite to Big Brother
Declan McCullagh writes in C|Net News:
Buried in the convoluted 91-page legalese of a recent Federal Communications Commission release on voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) is a proposal with worrisome privacy implications.
In it, the FCC suggests ways to "automatically identify the location" of all VoIP callers with handsets that connect to the telephone network. Those methods include creating an "inventory" of every Wi-Fi access point in the United States, engaging in "mapping and triangulation" of those access points, compiling an "access jack inventory" for wired VoIP users, or even mandating that Net phones include GPS receivers and broadcast their exact latitude and longitude.
The justification for those regulations sounds reasonable enough: to let emergency services identify an Internet caller's location when he or she dials 911. It's part of an ongoing proceeding in which the FCC gave VoIP operators until October to route 911 calls to the geographically appropriate call center.
posted by Fergie @ 8/15/2005 06:24:00 AM
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