Our digital slime trails

In late April there were two big events: a royal wedding that attracted millions of television viewers, and the discovery that the iPhone and Android look-alikes are all watching us. Every time we move location, smartphones are tracked, recorded, and positions uploaded without us knowing.

The question to be asking is what organisations just as Apple intend to do with these GPS records later? My guess is that the information will turn up in new forms of social networking involving real and virtual worlds.

It could as well be used in network design and management software, road and street-map refinements, crowd-control system design, building design, retail management, transport management and much more.