Hong Kong citizens are entering a brave new world in which they can track each other electronically - for a fee - raising privacy concerns from human rights groups and lawmakers.
A service launched yesterday by The Pinpoint Company enables bosses to know where their employees are via their mobile phones. Those seeking to keep tabs on their children or elderly parents will get access to similar services later this year. There are also plans to allow teenagers to track their friends.
Michael Tang, chief executive officer of The Pinpoint Company, argued that the group's products respected personal privacy.
The 'WorkPlace' system locates employees by tracking their mobile phones according to the strength of their signals in relation to base stations around Hong Kong. The location is pinpointed on a computer screen map and is accurate to 150-200 metres.
Workers would have to give permission to be tracked through the WorkPlace service, to be run in conjunction with Hutchison Telecommunications, and could turn off the location function using their phone, Mr Tang said. However, children would not have to give their permission to be tracked, and nor would elderly people who had lost their mental faculties, he said.
The 'Safety Walker' service for the elderly would work from a device with three buttons and would not be able to be turned off for safety reasons, he said.
The device, to be launched in October, would enable the elderly to contact family and enable families to find them if they had become lost, he said. It would cost several thousand dollars initially, plus between $150 and $400 per month.
