Find your Friends on Google Maps with Google Latitude

Google have just announced Google Latitude – a new feature of Google Maps that allows users to locate their friends on a map. This service is available to users with web enabled mobile phones as well as an iGoogle gadget. Even without a mobile phone, it is possible to share your location with your friends through iGoogle.

Google Latitude Privacy:

Google says that users will have complete control over their privacy, even after accepting friend invites. Users will be able to decide whether they want to share their location as well as controlling who gets to see it.

However, there are privacy advocates who are skeptical of these claims. Privacy International identified a major security flaw in this new phone tracking system.

PI have identified five scenarios where a second party can gain physical access to a user’s phone and enable Google Latitude without the phone owner’s consent or knowledge.

• An employer provides staff with Latitude-enabled phones on which a reciprocal sharing agreement has been enabled, but does not inform staff of this action or that their movements will be tracked.
• A parent gifts a mobile phone to a child without disclosing that the phone has been Latitude-enabled.
• A partner, friend or other person gains access to an unattended phone (left on a bar on in the house) and enables Latitude without the other person’s knowledge.
• A Latitude-enabled phone is given as a gift.
• A phone left unattended, for example with security personnel or a repair shop, is covertly enabled.

To protect your privacy, Google provide privacy tips for Google Latitude users.