One of the questions I always like to ask small fleet owners who are using tracking devices is: "do you tell your employees they're being tracked?" The responses vary, but I'd say the majority DO tell their employees what's going on.

Sometimes there is some resistance at first; one driver told his employer that he would just stop taking the company truck home at night - but in the end that never happened. The employee still takes the truck home (it's a delivery vehicle) and it makes him much more efficient in making pickups in the morning) and not much has changed - other than the driver knows he can't take the truck out for personal reasons at night or on the weekends.

My personal belief is that honesty is the best policy. I'm not saying that companies are being dishonest, but if you do a search for "gps tracking" on Google you'll see quite a few companies advertising "spy" and "covert" systems.

I recently watched a video about a GPS tracking system for cabs deployed in Kenya. The IT director mentions that he deployed a system for one company and all the drivers quit. There's also a big uprising with NYC cabbies not wanting to be tracked.

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Ublip, Inc.
www.ublip.com
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As lucrative it is to operate a taxi in NYC, I have a hard time believing that any cabbies actually quit over having a known tracking device in their vehicles. My take on the dispute was that is was less about privacy, and more about (what else) dollars, i.e., who would actually have to pay for the devices?

I think this whole GPS privacy thing is a red herring. The benefits of tracking far outweigh any VERY MINOR potential intrusion on privacy.

I tend to agree on the privacy front, but I believe security is a definite concern. If a company uses the proper methods to keep location data secure, and end users are educated about this, the adoption rate will be much higher. The privacy of my current location is not a big deal if I feel 110% confident that only my friends, family, co-workers (people I authorize) can see it. But if I feel insecure about this data getting into the hands of the wrong people then I'm much more hesitant.

__________________
Ublip, Inc.
www.ublip.com
blog.ublip.com

As the younger folks get more mixed into the working ranks, this will become less of an issue since it has been shown this generation does not care about being tracked and understand the benefits. Also, as most of us know, you can always find ways around being tracked when you prefer it does not happen. Just look for the big rigs with a can duck taped on their cab over the GPS antenna. The key to getting employee buy-in is to stress the benefits (i.e. breakdowns, theft, health emergencies, being lost, etc.) as to why it is a good thing than to stress "making certain you are working".

Keeping things in positive tones also helps with the selling of the system since you are stressing benefits to the buyer. Of course, the buyer will also realize the catching of the lazy employee as another benefit but never use that as a selling point. This way when the buyer receives the negative comments from their employees, they are already armed with good responses and are just trying to show their employees how much they care about their safety and well being. Plus it will also help to reduce waste and make the job easier for everyone. (yea, I'm the sales guy too).

__________________
John McGinnis
AVIDwireless
(972) 401-3655

I lead a project that put GPS and event loggers with wireless connectivity into 10,000+ worker's vehicles. Union employees. Some resistance at first. But we gave them wireless keychain fobs to call for medical/police aid. That fob linked through the vehicle's system to a call center.

Management did NOT want big-brother employee monitoring but rather they got trends analysis to improve the dispatching algorithms for the workforce. Viewing moving icons-on-maps does not apply to most workforces (public safety is an exception). System paid for itself in a year. Big-brother-is-watching the workforce is a silly notion, doesn't happen in a "real" company looking to improve efficiency and customer satisfaction. But it makes for good chatting fodder.