Is the Safety of Your "Friend" Your REAL Concern?

How does it feel to know that you may be under constant watch? And how does it feel to know that your cellular phone is what’s enabling that very observer to know your location? All of this is possible through the use of a cellular phone service for which the user pays a monthly fee: the GPS Location Finder service. Believe it or not, in South Korea, cellular phone Location Finder Service—more commonly referred to as “Friend Locator”—is quite widely used by cellphone users.

In order to use this service, both people must consent to allowing the other person to gain location-related information. In other words, people need to be “service friends” with one another in order to see on one’s cellphone the other person’s current location. Being “friends” is not at all difficult: once you request “friendship” to a person, that person will be notified of this through a text message, and by pressing the corresponding number on the dial pad—1 for accept and 2 for reject—you two will either become friends or remain “un-friended.” Due to the ease of such “friendship”, married couples sometimes establish such friendship without the other person knowing. For example, when your husband is fast asleep, you can request to be friends, and you can accept the request text message on your husband’s phone. This can be done without your husband’s knowing, and you can constantly check what your husband is up to when he’s not home!

Typical users of this “Friend Locator” service are parents, who are protective of their children and wish to be informed every once in a while where their child is, and couples who are curious about their spouses or boyfriend/girlfriend’s whereabouts. Although not much question has been raised regarding the issue of using Friend Locator and invasion of the cellphone bearers’ privacy, it is an issue that must not be overlooked. Despite the good intentions with which such service was initially provided to the public, “Friend Locator” is undoubtedly being misused at times in order to “satisfy” the user’s mistrust in the “friend” and is consequently, invading the “friend’s” privacy. The South Korean government should limit the use of “Friend Locator” to crime-related issues such as kidnapping.

Technology, although it provides us with useful information, is prone to misuse through social shaping. We, as users, must be aware not to take part in such act and to prevent such from happening.