A Discredit to the Privacy Cause

The “Death Knell of Privacy” article is making a privacy issue out of Sprint’s Business Mobility Framework technology. In a nutshell, the technology allows businesses to centrally track the location of its mobile workforce and upload maps, driving directions, and application development tools to this workforce. The author considers this technology an invasion of privacy, a curb to productivity, and a warning sign that any company considering this technology has personnel issues so serious that the Board of Directors should resign.

A business has every right to know the whereabouts of their mobile workforce, and this technology can absolutely enhance, not hinder, productivity. Keep in mind that the business is the one paying for the technology and may also be providing the mobile phone at no cost to the employee; therefore, the phone exists to serve the business and the emergency needs of the employee during work hours. Curbing the down time of the sales force and other personnel that deal directly with clients has tangible results in productivity and revenue. Every business has the right to not only track employee productivity but to evaluate it and make sound decisions regarding the efficiency of its workers.

Furthermore, the author is focusing on the negative. The ability to centrally provide maps, driving directions, applications, timed voice mails, and inventory tracking in a decentralized organization is extremely valuable to both the professional success of the employee and the revenue goals of the organization.

Another demonstration of the lack of credibility with the author’s argument is his comparison of this technology, and the companies that utilize it, as a pathway to the return of 20th century totalitarian regimes! Where does that analogy come from? How does any reasonable person make that comparison? This argument does discredit to the noble cause of protecting privacy in our increasingly smaller world. There are legitimate privacy concerns out there, and Sprint’s Business Mobility Framework Technology is not one of them.