Peter wrote:
OK, sure, but that was decades ago – before the mass migrations into Europe started. These have made passports politically impossible to avoid. The ID card works within Schengen only because the zone is “secured” at its perimeter.
Nope. Pre-Brexit you could enter the UK on a EU-country issued ID card, no problem. Many Spaniards and Italians used them, as in these countries you are required to carry them, so they had them anyway.
It isn’t clear how much of such tracing is due to GPS location data and how much is ip@ related. If I turn on my VPN with a Netherlands server instead of Switzerland, I suddenly start getting ads in Dutch.
Adverts would be fed based on IP. Too complicated to do it based on GPS coordinates, and one could disable position services which would make a great adblocker 
Billing is based on which GSM network you are connected to; this is used to rip people off near EU borders (Serbia etc come to mind) 
I don’t know about IOS but Android phone tracking uses GPS; you can view your own data via the google website for your device. This is a wonderful system, enabling google maps to do better satnav than any satnav product (like Tomtom, Sygic, and all the other “crap” which I have used over the years, with only the old Nokia Maps working well) and with real time traffic jam etc warnings because loads of people stuck in traffic have android phones.
Graham wrote:
The problem is not with having an ID card, but with a standing requirement to produce it on demand.
I don’t know. I think it’s a problem in itself to demand that people shall have an ID card. It serves no real purpose other than creating a cold and alien society. There’s lots of stuff you cannot do without being able to identify yourself somehow, it’s not clear to me how that will even work living an ordinary life. But if you don’t want to live an ordinary life, but instead want to live on an island (literally), off grid, you should be able to do that without someone watching over you on an everyday basis.
Graham wrote:
Only if you leave GPS turned on.
Not necessarily. They also triangulate from the phone signal.
Graham wrote:
I still have it because I believe the benefits outweigh the negatives.
Obviously. And it can get difficult without them nowadays. Try booking a bus or trainticket here without the app… next to impossible. And doing that requires, guess what… GPS.
Graham wrote:
I am completely cool with proving my identity for my own benefit, when it’s because I want something that isn’t available anonymously – e.g. renting a car – but not with the idea that a government employee can demand it and I must comply.
The only times I’ve had to show my papers recently other than for border crossing were showing my drivers license in one of the countless routine controls they do here. I’ve not had to show my personal ID to authorities in recent years in Switzerland unless I had to identify myself at e.g. the passport office (to get a new one) or recently my ID and health card when doing the vaccination to prove that it’s me.
Silvaire wrote:
The issue is with the inability to understand the difference between acting in your own interest, at your own discretion, and complying with authority for its benefit.
It certainly isn’t the same thing, yet also the last several times I got into traffic controls in the US I had to show my license (as that is practically what everyone uses as ID in the US. “May I see some form of identification?” is usually the question.
clearly, with capabilities of our mobile communications (not to speak of what new model cars do in that regards, I wonder when they’ll enable them to call the cops if you go too fast or what?) ID’s may well change towards that. And honestly, I rather carry a piece of plastic that I can legally use to identify myself than having cops in their cars just looking at a map print seeing all the mobile numbers attached to the cars passing by….
chflyer wrote:
It isn’t clear how much of such tracing is due to GPS location data and how much is ip@ related. If I turn on my VPN with a Netherlands server instead of Switzerland, I suddenly start getting ads in Dutch.
I’ve been wondering, particularly as someone seems to think it is appropriate to send me advertizing in French…
What is stunning though (and not in a nice sense) is how bloody interconnected everything has become. Search on google for a topic and you get all sorts of adds on all your devices related to that topic. Which can be “funny” if you research things for someone else. But while most people regard this kind of advertizing as simply bothersome, the amount of data collected and misused is staggering.
I am on some sort of experiment right now: I got an app of my local food store which sends me the cash receipt onto my phone (no more paper). I am tempted to go and bulk buy some toilet paper to see if I get adds for anti diareah medicine? Just to give one rather disgusting example?
They also triangulate from the phone signal.
AFAIK this is not used for any user-visible phone positioning. It is logged by the networks, accessible to police etc, every 10 mins, and for every SMS or phone call. The phone itself certainly cannot locate itself using GSM triangulation.
If positioning is apparently working without GPS enabled, it works via a database of MAC numbers (wifi access point MAC# database) which was compiled by google’s camera cars, and before that using phones reporting MAC numbers + GPS back to google All denied of course. Some previous posts on this topic from years ago; basically some phones would disable some handy functionality unless GPS was enabled.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
Not necessarily. They also triangulate from the phone signal.
To a barely usable degree of accuracy. Have you ever seen any map-based app have a stab at locating your device if GPS is switched off? It would be lucky to be within half a mile. This was back in the day anyway – most apps won’t even try now unless GPS is on. The general push is to encourage you to leave it on all the time, but I don’t because it’s (a) undesireable to me, and (b) a battery hog.
Anyway, if I want to do something secret I will leave my phone at home. Or use a burner phone.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
Try booking a bus or trainticket here without the app… next to impossible. And doing that requires, guess what… GPS
I have not used a bus for probably at least 10 years, and a train for at least a year. Neither of them feature in my travel plans anytime soon. I have used apps to book train tickets in the past few years and none of them required GPS to be switched on. In any case, the event is sufficiently rare that nowadays I would book using a computer before leaving home.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
showing my drivers license in one of the countless routine controls they do here
Thankfully we have no such thing in the UK. I have not spoken to a policeman or any sort of government employee conducting ‘checks’ or ‘controls’ for at least 10 years, probably more. The average British citizen will go decades without being stopped while driving and many will drive their entire life without it ever happening. They cannot stop you for a routine check – they need reasonable suspicion that something is amiss (e.g. your car is unroadworthy / uninsured / being driven badly). What stops them pulling you over just for the fun of it (and inventing a ‘suspicion’) is the paperwork that every stop generates – a nice check on their power. In decades past it was not uncommon to be stopped by the police if you were driving a fancy car just because they were interested and wanted to have a look at it!
Overall, I still think you’re missing the point on what it is that I object to about mandatory ID cards and being required to produce them on demand.
Peter wrote:
It is logged by the networks, accessible to police etc, every 10 mins, and for every SMS or phone call.
The police need a warrant I believe, and obtaining one is a bit more work than an ordinary search warrant for the house of a suspected drug dealer.
For a phone to position itself using tower signals it would need the locations of the towers it is connecting to and I am 99% sure the GSM system does not give that to the phone.
Sure they need a warrant but any security service worth the taxpayer money can get that stuff instantly
Mooney_Driver wrote:
Search on google for a topic and you get all sorts of adds on all your devices related to that topic. Which can be “funny” if you research things for someone else. But while most people regard this kind of advertizing as simply bothersome, the amount of data collected and misused is staggering.
What would you expect? Google is not a heavenly gift or some social government agency but a for profit company – and a very successful one! It generates 150 bn. revenues by its ad business. Given that they have roughly a trillion searches per year, that is 15 ct. ad revenue per search. They are not “misusing” anything but it is rather a business deal you make with them that says “if I can use the data from this search for ads, you don’t have to pay the 15ct. this search costs”.
If you don’t want this, the core question will be: Are you willing to pay 15ct for every single google search you do? Even if you would, what do you think how many of your fellow citizens would say “paying 15ct myself for every single google search instead of getting ads is actually a good deal”?
