A story in The New York Times (free registration required) portrays GM's OnStar system as an enemy of personal privacy. From the driver's point of view, OnStar is a button on your visor. When you press it, your car's GPS location is sent to an operator who then initiates a two-way, hands-free conversation with you. The operator can call you a tow truck, give you directions, make dinner reservations, whatever yo A story in The New York Times (free registration required) portrays GM’s OnStar system as an enemy of personal privacy. From the driver’s point of view, OnStar is a button on your visor. When you press it, your car’s GPS location is sent to an operator who then initiates a two-way, hands-free conversation with you. The operator can call you a tow truck, give you directions, make dinner reservations, whatever you’re willing to pay for. If you lock your keys (or your child/cat/dog) in your car, OnStar can pop your locks for you. Your car also calls OnStar automatically if your airbags deploy. And finally, OnStar can pass the location of your car to law enforcement if the car is stolen or if the driver has gone missing.GM’s ads for OnStar understandably avoid using true crisis enactments to sell their service. Commercials have dead batteries, empty tanks and a guy looking for nearby restaurants. The Times piece cites another trivial use for OnStar: Doing the flash/honk so you can find your car in a parking lot. All are helpful, but not essential. It’s throwaway applications like these that make OnStar such an easy target for privacy advocates.For applications like the ones promoted by GM, and for small emergencies like blown tires and empty tanks, OnStar is no more useful than a cell phone. But there are problems with using a cell phone in a true emergency. You have to be conscious and clear-headed enough to dial, listen and speak. That is, if you’re lucky enough to find your phone in the first place. Feeling around for your phone isn’t practical if you’re trapped under your dashboard or dangling upside down from your seat belt. And if you want to see how helpful cell phones are after an accident, throw yours against your windshield as hard as you can. Then make a call. We all have the right to limit untrusted parties’ knowledge of our whereabouts. For me, it isn’t a matter of trust. It’s an eyes-open business deal: I trade some of my privacy for safety and convenience. I’d trust OnStar as much as my Internet provider, my cellular carrier, my bank, my local phone company and my health insurance provider. Do all of these entities sell my information or let it be seen without my knowledge? Of course! So would OnStar. The thing is, I don’t care. I’m already on the grid and in the system. The only thing OnStar would have on me that isn’t already out there is my GPS coordinates. Or, rather, my car’s. I can still park at the mall and take a taxi to my drug dealer’s house.When I’m in serious trouble, I won’t waste my fading consciousness worrying that Applebee’s knows that I’m 27 miles from its nearest restaurant. When I mash that OnStar button, I don’t care if the Applebee’s bartender himself takes the call. As long as he knows where I am.——– Technology Industry