Next from Sibal: Mobile user tracking in latitudes and longitudes

If you're still seething over social media censorship, you may just have to brace yourself for something more....a lot more. Mr. Sibal's work desk, at the moment, seems to be filled with documents of a new proposal - tracking mobile users, right down to the latitudes and longitudes. Although not in practice, yet; the IT Minister is toying with the idea of close to implementing, what is seeming to be a 'bold' move. According to an Indian Express report, in the amendments that were made to the operators' licences, the DoT will seek real-time details about a mobile user's location in latitudes and longitudes, beginning from May 31.

I see you

The report further specifies that while the government will initially provide only certain numbers, it seeks location details for, it plans to make it a uniform norm within 3 years. Obviously, for a tricky method like this, the government will surely go through a period of trial and error. The report, however affirms that by the next year, the government would have tracked at least 60 percent of the calls in the urban areas, accurately, when made 100 metres away from the closest cell tower. The government plans to further increase this percentage to 75 percent in the cities and 50 percent in the suburban and rural areas. An increase in mobile phone surveillance, reportedly, came up after the DoT set up a Centralised Monitoring System (CMS), allowing them to tap mobile phones, almost instantly.

So clearly, what are we headed to? If the ministry has its way, do we see ourselves getting up to a day when we see the government tracking our every move? How do we see the system function, once we know that the mobile phone that we carry, also works as a makeshift spy? Let us know your views in the comments section below.