The major phone makers including Apple, Samsung and Google have protested against the move of smartphone location surveillance tracking in India. The device makers said that this would hamper the privacy of the citizens. The telecom industry has proposed that smartphone firms should enable satellite location tracking. This would help the government agencies in tracking devices/individuals easily. In the current system, the firms/agencies can only use cellular data to track people or phones, but that also gives an idea about an estimated area where the device could be.
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With the satellite tracking, this would become more accurate. According to Reuters report, COAI (Cellular Operators Associations of India) has proposed that precise user locations should only be provided if the government orders smartphone makers to activate A-GPS technology. This particular technology uses satellite signals and cellular data - according to a June internal federal IT ministry detail.
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But for this to work, the smartphone makers will need to ensure that location services on phones are switched on all the time. Users will not be able to disable them. This is something which should not be mandated, believe the phone makers. No country in the world does this, and it doesn't sound too privacy friendly either.
