Ordnance survey data to be used to track vulnerable groups

According to a recent BBC News website story, data collected by mapping agency Ordnance Survey could soon be used to keep track on vulnerable groups such as lone workers and young children. This is the first time that Ordnance Survey has given access to its ‘OS OpenSpace’ dataset to a commercial client. OpenSpace launched 18 months ago, enabling unprecedented access to Ordnance Survey cartography. It relies on Javascript and is free for non-commercial clients. By October 2009 almost 2,500 developers had signed up to use the free service including many regional outdoors activity groups who are using OS OpenSpace to provide routes for country walks and bike rides.

The story goes on to state however that a leading firm behind the mobile-phone location service may be the first commercial company to be able to utilise this data. Users wishing to take advantage of the service will have to have a GPS-enabled handset for the service to work, which can only be activated with the consent of the mobile owner. The system can then locate the handset to within 10 metres of its actual position, although the smartphone application does come with an optional "off" button too.

The system works by using a mobile phone's GSM connection which then sends the GPS signal to servers to plot the information on to an Ordnance Survey map. This then transmits the data to a viewable, secure internet page, which is updated on the website every two minutes. Although not a new idea, it has in fact been deployed by both military and police forces over recent years, the advent of smartphones with inbuilt GPS has made it far more accessible and therefore now it is being targeted at small to medium businesses vulnerable workers and parents with small children. Furthermore it has been suggested that doctors, district nurses, estate agents, social workers, bailiffs and taxi drivers could also be amongst those that might benefit from installing this type of service as a safety precaution.

Jenny Fawson of the Suzy Lamplugh Trust believes that technology such as this can play a major role. "It is important that organisations recognise the responsibility they have for keeping their staff safe," she said. LookOut call’s Brian Caddy however believes that although any development that helps to improve the safety of vulnerable groups is to be welcomed, there are obvious pitfalls to such a system as he outlines.

 “To rely purely alone on pinpointing the location of a handset can give a false sense of security to users. In my experience, owner and handset can often become separated for a variety of reasons,  meaning that valuable time may be lost in an urgent situation in actually locating the missing person’s actual location. LookOut call may well be more reliable as it uses lone workers verbal location update messages, left in advance – which cannot be affected by the problems encountered by GPS satellite tracking in a built-up area, or a block of flats for example. 

(Source BBC NEWS)