Do You Really Want Airlines To Post Your Location In-flight Using Twitter And Facebook?

Do You Really Want Airlines to Post Your Location In-Flight Using Twitter and Facebook?

By Bangkokatoz.com

Just read a story headlined “Airlines Using Social Media to Relay Location in the Sky” that reports some airlines are introducing a service doing exactly that.

There are obvious benefits, of course. For example, if your 12-year-old child is flying alone, it would be nice to have some tracking of him or her. If you yourself are flying, your friends and loved ones might like being able to know where you are, especially if one of them is supposed to pick you up.

But that brings up a couple questions the article doesn’t answer. While it does say the information is coming from the airlines, not the aircraft, it doesn’t say where the airlines are getting *their* information. If they are simply estimating but your aircraft is diverted far right or left to avoid a major storm system, then number one, the location given won’t be correct, and number two, the recipients will be unaware of the delay, too. And your wife may be unhappy when you land three hours late! ;-)

When I first read the article, I gave some considerable thought to whether there might be security worries caused by this service. I suppose it’s possible, but as a person who worked in security for years (if many years ago), I can’t think of any significant risks. But even a small risk is a risk -- hence, the headline of this story. After all, as I understand the story, this reports on the entire aircraft, not passengers individually, and that means you can’t tell the airline personnel to leave you out.

There’s a side note to this: people need to be very cautious about announcing travel plans to the entire universe on social media services. Don’t write on your Facebook wall “Happy! I’m taking the entire family to Thailand for three glorious weeks. We’re leaving early tomorrow morning and coming back on the morning/afternoon/night of [your date of return]. We even found a kennel to keep Fido that doesn’t cost very much.” Reading that in the context of my story, I imagine the danger is obvious: now burglars may know you’re house will be empty -- why else put your pet at the kennel? -- for three entire weeks. And you could come home only to find the house or apartment ransacked.

Not.

-- Bangkokatoz.com 2009-10-23