The Global Positioning System (GPS) allows users to pinpoint their location anywhere on Earth to within a few meters. GPS technology was developed for military use, but by the early twenty-first century it had acquired numerous civilian applications including navigation, mapping and surveying, optimizing emergency response systems, and precision agriculture. The major ethical and legal challenges of this technology relate to national control and the potential end-uses of GPS-derived locational data. The U.S. Department of Defense provides the global GPS infrastructure; civilian use is maintained at the discretion of the U.S. government. Personal privacy is a concern because GPS capabilities, embedded in devices such as cell phones, can allow third parties to track the location of individuals. Regulations and laws covering such surveillance are not fully developed.

GPS almost always refers to the NAVSTAR system, the most widely used Global Navigation Satellite...