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Defense Ministry Tracks Officials Through GPS Cellphones

Keeping track of staff at every footstep

By Elena Balan, Communications News Editor

1st of November 2007, 15:58 GMT

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Japan's Defense Ministry thought of GPS enabled mobile phones to be the greatest solution for locating its staff. They frequently need to know exactly where their senior bureaucrats and senior Self-Defense Forces officers are even in their free time, for taking care of emergencies.

The intention has all

chances of becoming real, as an official statement from Vice Foreign Minister Kohei Masuda made it clear that they consider this to be the best solution. The Minister reached this solution as a result of a recent scandal that is under fire for having played golf with a defense equipment trader and for being wined and dined frequently over 12 years in violation of an in-house ethical rule of conduct.

At a first glimpse, this sounds like a serious issue of privacy will be raised. Some ministry bureaucrats are already criticizing the idea as an overreaction given that GPS mobile phones are popularly used in Japan. They find it demeaning to always be under supervision, just as small children are being put by their parents through GPS technology.

The Defense Ministry staff members will have to carry a mobile phone packed with this positioning feature. Just how it will prevent them from playing golf in the future and avoid scandals just like the recent one is yet left to know. This means that a team of people will have to keep track of all their actions and locations over a long period of time. This sounds like a great privacy limitation, although forgetting the handset at home, willingly or not, is nothing impossible. Of course, a superior might call in the meantime, checking up on the owner for staying for too long in one spot and looking suspicious.

It sounds like hard times are ahead for Defense Ministry officials, although it's left to see whether this solution will actually be used or not in the future.

TAGS:

Defense Ministry | GPS | staff | officials

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