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Personal Info versus the Public Good

By Leland Sinkeivich

Is privacy truly weighed against the public good? Government seems to do whatever they wish despite alleged privacy guarantees. And in all, the people haven't made too much of a stink about it. But what about private companies sharing personal info if there is a legitimate safety issue? What about a child's life being at stake? Is it really so cut and dry?

Many websites will insist differently, but there is absolutely, positively no such thing as a cell phone number database, or directory. The few that been compiled over the years were woefully incomplete, and as the carriers have never cooperated with the compilation of such a thing, any outside attempts are immediately outdated as subscribers drop service, have accounts cancelled, change numbers, etc. Minus the fabled cellular directory, how can people locate a person's cellular phone number, or reverse search the cell number and identify the owner? And should they be able to?

To accomplish this, one would have to contract a cell phone lookup from a private investigative company. There are people with things to hide, be they criminals, unfaithful spouses, etc. But does that give the average person the right to look behind the curtain of cellular privacy?

Curiosity is not a legitimate reason to see whose at the other end of a cell phone number. Stalking and other shady and illegal activities are also problematic for the investigator, who might never truly know what a client's real intentions are. But aren't there legitimate reasons why someone may need to identify or locate the owner of a cell phone?

It is easy to decide that cell phone information should be beyond access, but what if finding your own child required knowing about a particular cellular phone number? What if your child was abducted, or decided to meet some stranger they met online. Kids love to text and are obviously not as cautious as we parents would like. Imagine your child meeting someone from MySpace in real life. They are gone, and you have no idea where. The only clue you have is a stranger's cell phone number. You can have a cell phone search done on the number, or you can wait for the police to become concerned enough to act. And then you can wait some more as "policy" and "procedure" slow everything down to a snail's pace.

With your kid in danger, which solution would you choose: knowing their whereabouts immediately, or waiting a whole day, then letting the situation that is completely out of your hands unfold through a slow, bureaucratic process handled by people with no personal stake in the outcome?

The choice is simple. And while these cell phone lookup investigations can be abused, like anything else, there is certainly a time and place when people have a right to know whose on the other end.

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