Wednesday, August 15, 2012

The World Of A Total Tracking

Nowadays even the most skeptical scientists admit that we live in an information society. For most countries and communities information becomes the most valuable political and economical resource. A huge number of organizations and institutions are involved in collecting information. With the help of technology development they can get more and more detailed information. Never before in a human history could we find a period when the information was so available, that it is possible to get detailed personal information almost about every human being especially from the Western part of the world.

The whole world seems to be engaged in the process of collecting the information: security services, marketing and sociological researches and social media, where sometimes very personal information is put on a public display. Of course this new trend of knowing everything about everybody couldn't exist without new technological achievements. Just like Renaissance wasn't possible without printing, modern Western civilization could not exist without GPS and GLONASS technologies used for personal tracking. Last century tracking systems were invented and used for military purposes only. Nowadays GPS and GLONASS technologies are widely used for employees tracking, children and spouse tracking, elderly people tracking, teenagers tracking.

The role of governments in modern civilizations depends on managing and controlling the information of different kinds, but mainly information about human resources and every citizen in particular. During the last several decades the Western world seems to make its choice in favor of security and at the expense of personal freedoms. Nowadays almost anything including human rights violation can be justified by safety reasons. This happens on a governmental level, as well as on corporate and family levels.

Mass production of GPS trackers makes the device cheaper and cheaper and some of the researchers claim that by 2023 every organization in the United States would have enough resources to track every employee.  Even now the society does not consider employee tracking as a human rights violation. It is commonly believed that employer buys the time of the employee and that is why has the right to know what is going on during this time. 

Family members tracking can also be explained if we take a closer look on a lifestyle in the information society. A typical Western man spends most of the time working and in the spare time he is usually trying to absorb an enormous amount of goods, entertainments and information. The amount of time a modern person spends in a family circle is declining every year and relatives become more and more detached. At the same time people still want to overcome the growing isolation and that explains the boom of the various technical means, social media and other inventions of the 21st century, that allow staying in touch. But GPS tracking is a much more convenient instrument of taking care about the family. With the help of tracking system one can always have full information about every move of a spouse, kids, teenagers and elderly relatives. 

The fact that tracking obviously breaks some boundaries and destroys personal space doesn't seem to bother the society too much. Any decision like that can be easily justified by safety reasons, of course.

All that seems to only demonstrate the fact that technology develops so fast, that the society doesn't have time to create certain regulations and manage new opportunities.

It means that if the Western society would not find the way to limit and control certain technologies, we might end up in a dystopia where everybody plays the role of a big brother who watches you.

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