“There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time.  But at any rate they could plug in your wire whenever they wanted to. You had to live—did live, from habit that became instinct—in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized.” - 1984 George Orwell

We are often asked, why we choose to not have location, images and network data sent to our servers, or grant our staff access to customers’ systems. This is by design and has to do with our personal philosophies and a direct reaction to traditional theft recovery solutions which ask you to trade your privacy for security ( not unlike the Mafia ).

We have seen technology evolve at an alarming rate, our mobile devices have become smaller, smarter and more portable. The saturation of expensive portable electronic devices into our society makes them prime targets for thieves of course, particularly with the current economic downturn. However in addition to the portability of these devices, we have become more reliant on them, trusting these devices with our personal information, financial, medical and other sensitive information. To add to this complexity as these devices become more networked the data is many times not just stored on the device itself, but across vast data grids and across social networking sites.

This evolution of technology raises serious security and privacy concerns. Just a few years agowe would worried that a hackers or governments could track what websites we have visit, but now  mobile computing devices can track where we are at all times as well as use cameras to capture images of us. Today it is conceivable that we can be tracked wherever we go, both online and offline.

GadgetTrak has been a pioneer in the development of innovative solutions to curb device theft. GadgetTrak is the only company that has recovered stolen iPods using our patented tracking technologies.  GadgetTrak is also the first to combine the latest in wi-fi positioning with social media to assist in the recovery of devices, while still protecting your privacy. Competing theft recovery products rely on a more traditional and invasive methods, they have monitoring centers staffed with employees who can activate your web camera, access your files and other privacy and security intrusions. Some of these companies have had massive security oversights that have put their customers’ systems and identity at risk, many of these companies are not based in the U.S. and so many data protection laws that have been established to protect consumers are not recognized or respected and security and privacy are after thoughts in the product development.

When a company says that you should trust them with a backdoor into your system, you should consider what happend recently with U.S. Presiden Barack Obama.  Verizon employee accessed Obama’s mobile phone records, which is of course against Verizon’s policies and is highly illegal. Curiosity is a human trait, now imagine what could happen when an employee has access to thousands of customers systems including the ability to activate web cameras and access sensitive data. The weakest link in any security chain is the human one.

This software behaves similarly to what has been termed GhostNet which is a cyber-espionage network that infects computers for the purposes of providing a foreign government access to systems, the only difference is that instead of a government it is a company. As many of these companies are based outside the U.S. one could be paranoid and wonder if there would be any condition or situation where control of customer’s systems would be granted to government agencies, or what could occur if these companies monitoring center systems security is compromised and hijacked and given the security lapses by some this is more likely than one may think.

Some of these companies will say that they serve as the middle-men to your data and camera to better protect you, stating that only they know how to work with the police. This is a flat out lie. At GadgetTrak we also assist you in the recovery of devices and have an excellent recovery rate, being a U.S. based company we are also approached by law enforcement agencies regularly to provide assistance and training. The difference is that you get to choose what data is passed to us,  not a third-party, you are empowered to choose what happens to the data our software collects.  If a company is not transparent with what and how they are collecting data and say it is only they who can work with the police, you should be suspect.

GadgetTrak’s software has been designed to recover devices while still respecting privacy by not putting any back-doors into your systems, or having images, location or network data sent to us. You should never be asked to trade your privacy for security. At GadgetTrak we provide peace of mind, not only by ensuring the security of your devices, but also your privacy.