Legal and Ethical Implications of GPS Vulnerabilities
| Author | Muhammad Usman Iqbal;Samsung Lim |
| Position | PhD Candidate, Senior LecturerSchool of Surveying and Spatial Information Systems The University of New South Wales |
| Pages | 178-187 |
Keywords: Global Positioning System (GPS), Vulnerabilities, Court Cases, Privacy, Surveillance, Tracking, Legal, Mobility-Pricing
Page 178
The Global Positioning System (GPS) is a space-based radio-navigation system using a constellation of satellites (currently 31) and provides precise position, velocity and timing information to receivers on the ground that can obtain the signals of four or more satellites simultaneously (FRnP, 1999). Primarily designed for military applications, it has recently seen widespread adoption by the civilian community with an explosive growth in the number of users and applications of this technology. Part of this demand stems from the changes prompted by GPS in the way some industries operate, from construction to emergency services. In fact, GPS is invading all walks of life, from personal navigation in cars and emergency location services for mobile phone users, to location-based charging systems such as GPS-enabled vehicle insurance and friend-finder services (Iqbal & Lim, 2006; Grush, 2005; Vidales & Stajano, 2002; Zhang, Wang, & Hackbarth, 2003).
GPS devices have become pocket-sized, battery operated and commercially available at nominal costs. They are also being embedded into mobile phones, digital cameras, Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) and watches. This ubiquity of location-determination devices enables tracking and monitoring of individuals by governmental entities, private entities and individuals which raises profound ethical, policy and legal issues for the society. In recent years, the legal system has encountered various cases involving the use of GPS either as evidence collected through surveillance by Law Enforcement Agencies (LEAs), or as a tool for invasion of privacy of individuals in the workplace or private lives. While GPS data has been used to indict and convict individuals for suspicious criminal activity, individuals have also presented GPS data to prove their innocence (ABC News, 2007a; ABC News, 2007b). In the United States, courts have debated whether surreptitious installation of GPS-tracking devices amounts to 'search' or 'seizure' requiring a warrant under the 4th Amendment. Most of these debates have revolved around the notion whether GPS tracking can be an invasion of privacy of individuals; however, there have been minimal discussions about the accuracy of this GPS data in legal contexts and virtually no mention of the vulnerabilities of GPS data as a result of malicious human intervention in judicial reasoning.
GPS is a radio-navigation system and is prone to certain vulnerabilities that may be either intentional or unintentional. This paper comprises of two experiments to highlight two weaknesses of GPS systems which may be introduced intentionally, specifically, malicious editing of GPS data, and spoofing of GPS signals, which means transmission of GPS-like fake signals with false positional data. These issues raise the prospect of forged GPS data being presented to courts by individuals who have the motive and the technical knowledge in an effort to inflict harm, to defame or to exonerate a person of criminal charges. By exposing the weaknesses present, this Page 179 paper aims to draw the attention of the legal fraternity to these issues which may put the legal system in a dilemma where over-reliance on GPS technology in judicial settings may produce disastrous results, especially when innocence or guilt largely depends on GPS evidence. Therefore, it is imperative for legislators to acknowledge and address this problem.
Before delving into the experiments that expose weaknesses of GPS receivers, it would be worthwhile to review some legal and commercial scenarios where GPS is actively being used.
The United States constitution's fourth amendment protects the right of people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures (Kilman & George, 2000). The fourth amendment test has been applied in various cases to decide whether privacy rights of individuals were violated. The Supreme Court case that comes closest to the use of GPS tracking is United States vs. Knotts (1983), involving a 'beeper'- a battery operated Radio Frequency (RF) transmitter, which was attached to a chloroform container that the defendant had purchased and loaded in his car. The police followed the defendant by a combination of visual surveillance and the use of the beeper to locate the defendant's rural cabin which turned out to be a drugs laboratory. Although a search warrant was obtained to enter the premises, the court held that monitoring the vehicle while it was on public roads without a warrant was permissible because the defendant had no reasonable expectation of privacy when in public. According to the court, the beeper was merely an augmentation to the sensory faculties bestowed upon the police officials at birth and was analogous to using a pair of binoculars while conducting visual surveillance.
The United States vs. Garcia (2007) case is a more recent one and directly involves the use of GPS data for surveillance of suspected criminal activity and largely draws from the Knotts case. The police were tipped off by an informant that the defendant, who was recently released from prison for methamphetamine offences, had mentioned to him that he intended to produce meth again. The police located the defendant's vehicle on a public street where it was parked and installed a GPS memory tracking unit under the rear bumper. After a few days, when the device was removed, the police were able to learn the car's travel history since installation which led them to a tract of land that the defendant frequented and contained equipment and ingredients to produce meth. The defendant was arrested and charged with drug offences. The defendant contested to suppress this evidence as a fruit of an unconstitutional search because a warrant was not obtained before installing this tracking device. The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals concluded that installation of the GPS tracking device neither constituted seizure nor search because the device did not interfere with the driving qualities of the vehicle and was analogous to a police officer following the vehicle. However, the court did acknowledge that there was a practical difference between following a vehicle and using GPS devices.
The cases discussed above involved surreptitious installation of tracking devices by law enforcement officials. Another extraordinary case that has recently come to light involved the use of a GPS tracking device by a suspicious wife in her husband's vehicle (Finz & Taylor, 2004). The data obtained from the tracking device led to filing of murder charges by the police in the death of the couple's twelve year old baby-sitter. The device was placed by the wife in her husband's truck a few days earlier because she suspected him of having an affair. The husband told the police that he went to drop the baby-sitter to her home when they took a detour to show her some horses, then accidentally ran her over as he turned his truck around on a rural road in central New York. He was initially charged with a felony count of reckless endangerment, but based on data obtained from the GPS unit the charges were raised to second degree murder as data revealed that the defendant did not take the girl to see horses at all. Instead, he drove around other roads and spent more than three hours with her behind an abandoned home. Police believed that the girl had gotten away from him when he drove over her. At the time of writing this paper, this case awaits a decision, but proves that GPS data was the major evidence for indictment.
There has also been a trend to track and locate parolees, and sex-offenders using electronic means. GPS has become the technology of choice for implementing this. At least twenty-three states in the United States use GPS tracking of convicted sex-offenders and some states are even using GPS tracking as an inexpensive transition program for low-risk offenders in order to make more room in the crowded prisons (Mohan, 2006). Usually worn as an anklet or bracelet by the parolee, GPS tracking has proven to be a powerful tool in strengthening the monitoring of high-risk offenders (Newschanel.com, 2007). From real-time and retrospective monitoring of the subject's locations, movement patterns can be developed, and unusual activity may be predicted (Iqbal & Lim, 2007). Additionally, by augmenting the tracking device...
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