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comment: Where were you last Thursday night?

It's none of my business what you did. You were a private citizen going about your private affairs. If the Powers That Be tried to put a monitor on your car and track where you drove, you could probably cause a stink. Except ... last Thursday you were on overtime, in charge of the company truck doing a special delivery. So your employer is entitled to know EVERYTHING you did.

Mobile and wireless technology is going to change the world in a powerful way - we knew that; but today, before the Grand Prix race we got a taste of just what sort of changes might be on our way. It was an advert for a mobile car tracking system.

Now, here's the interesting bit: the advertisement isn't aimed at high street grand prix drivers but at fleet operators.

The Web site tells the story for a car owner: "CarBug uses satellite navigation technology to pinpoint the location of a vehicle, which may be lost, stolen, broken down, in an accident, or, more commonly, simply not where it is supposed to be!"

And it explains how it works: "CarBug does not require you to rely on any Central Tracking Unit, or the Police, to locate your vehicle. It is simply a matter of calling up the small CarBug Unit, concealed in the vehicle, from your PC or laptop and within seconds, a moving map display will show you the precise location, speed and direction of the vehicle."

CarBug consists of two components, hardware and software: a GPS receiver, and a GSM cellular telephone module with modem, processor and memory - complete with own antennas ... and the software is a street level mapping package for a PC.

And it not only shows you where the car is now, but where it has been ... "You can even download the CarBug's history file and find out where the vehicle has been, and depending on your driving habits, CarBug can store up to 6 months history."

And if it's a truck, you can find out whether one of your drivers really did go straight to the customer or whether he stopped in the red light district for a quarter of an hour, or whether he stopped at the Mafia-controlled warehouse to swap some bits for some more personally profitable ones.

Now, this is the thing: as the employer of the driver, nobody would query your right to track the man every inch of the way. Actually, as an employer, you're entitled - in some countries, at least - to do random drugs tests on your employees, to prevent them from bringing down crippling lawsuits if they do something under the influence.

If a Government tried to do this, there would be an outcry. But when we become employees, we cease to be citizens.