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Northeastern Cell Phone Study Draws Anger; University Defends Researcher
6/9/2008
But in a confusing time for many, when body scanners in airports, mandatory GPS tracking devices on K-12 students, and pervasive video surveillance inside and outside the education system are the norm--or, at least, a part of the growing trend toward institutional omniscience--what is it about this study that has triggered such alarm?
As the Associated Press reported Thursday:
[Study co-author Albert-László Barabási] said he did not check with any ethics panel. [Co-author Cesar] Hidalgo said they were not required to do so because the experiment involved physics, not biology. However, had they done so, they might have gotten an earful, suggested bioethicist Arthur Caplan at the University of Pennsylvania.
"There is plenty going on here that sets off ethical alarm bells about privacy and trustworthiness," Caplan said. "... [M]y cell phone is not public. My cell phone is personal. Tracking it and thus its owner is an active intrusion into personal privacy."
This, according to Northeastern, is a gross mischaracterization.
Still, the issue is a touchy one. "Location awareness" is a selling point for mobile technologies. Yahoo, Loopt, and others are pushing location-based social networking through mobile devices. (Loopt, incidentally, showed off its location-based social networking service running on iPhone at Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference Monday.) But these services are opt-in.
"But," asked Marshall Kirkpatrick of ReadWriteWeb, "what happens when companies or governments start using technologies like these to track us against our will, or without our consent?"
Northeastern, however, defended Barabási and his research Friday and denied that the study was conducted without ethical oversight, stating, "The study relied on a sample from anonymized, aggregate billing data from cell-phone users in an unidentified European country. The Institutional Review Board at the U.S. Office of Naval Research, which funded this study as part of a larger pool of research into human mobility patterns, reviewed the proposal in June 2007 and determined that it did not involve human subjects."
Northeastern's full response can be found here.
About the author: Dave Nagel is the executive editor for 1105 Media's educational technology online publications and electronic newsletters. He can be reached at dnagel@1105media.com.
Have any additional questions? Want to share your story? Want to pass along a news tip? Contact Dave Nagel, executive editor, at dnagel@1105media.com.
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