Apple fans are starting to “feel the magic” with news of NFC Proximity technology being tested for the new iPhone 5. But will this new technology spark yet another privacy debate?
It’s beginning to look more and more like Apple will make sure to deploy yet another game-changing technology feature for the iPhone 5. News has spread like wildfire that the new iPhone 5 prototypes are testing Near Field Technology — also known as NFC — which is something that iPhone users have been dreaming of for some quite some time.
Now all we need is for one of the new iPhone 5 engineers to get blasted and leave his iPhone 5 prototype at a bar in silicon valley.
While another beer-soaked iPhone snafu might be improbable, the inclusion of proximity technology in the iPhone 5 is almost sure to spark a fresh debate over the pros and cons of how technology like NFC encroaches on peoples’ privacy.
To be sure, Apple will market this technology in the same way that all companies in the private sector do for similar technology: tracking enhances your shopping experience, gives you more targeted information sourcing, and improves mobile communication. For the iPhone 5, now you’ll be able to pay for products in a store instantly by simply waving your iPhone at a “pay point.” None of these selling points are erroneous or even misleading: the technology that fuels many of the iPhone’s most popular apps and features are predicated on tracking the user. The same goes for Google’s uncanny ability to give accurate, targeted search results — tracking our movements on Googlesphere allows its algorithm to give mind reader-like search results.
However, NFC technology will bring the tracking and surveillance apparatus much, much closer to our mobile computing experience.
Up until this point, mobile tracking on smart phones has come from satellites. NFC, however, will bring iPhone 5 users into close contact with a host of different hubs and pay points that will further track the movements of iPhone users. It is not impossible to imagine that the “breadcrumb trail” that these interactions will leave will in fact become valuable sources of information for other companies seeking to further tweak their target marking to online users.
In addition, if wireless near-field data transfer — another feature being tested for the iPhone 5 — becomes a reality, this new mobile brand of data sharing becomes yet another commodity that hackers and scammers may be able to steal as well.
None of these issues are necessarily damaging to iPhone 5 users’ privacy. After all, any tracking, surveillance, and/or data sharing will be agreed to voluntarily by iPhone users, and the data will be used to give these users what they want — nifty, new mobile apps and features. The debate, however, will be what it is always about: a “slippery slope” wherein the private sector amasses a wealth of private information, and an ever-increasing reach of government to have access to that information.
We’ve seen over the past decade a steady erosion of the wall between the public and private sectors, leaving some people uneasy about the fact that all of that private, sensitive information is “out there.” Many people wish that the private information gained from tracking and surveillance didn’t even exist.
So this is where the next privacy debate will be. On one side, amazing iPhone 5 apps, a new way to pay (and spend your money quicker and easier), and a “smarter” iPhone. On the other side, fears that every movement will be tracked.
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