New York City taxi fare fraud uncovered by GPS

The city's Taxi and Limousine Commission found that taxi cabs charged passengers $8 million more than they should have:

Using G.P.S. technology installed in cabs, the commission discovered more than 1.8 million trips where passengers were charged the higher rate. The total amount of the overcharge was $8,330,155, or an average of $4.45 per trip, the agency said.

The agency said that drivers manually switched the meter from the standard rate of 40 cents per fifth of a mile to the 80-cents-per-fifth-of-a-mile rate that cabbies are allowed to charge in Westchester and Nassau Counties, but not in New York City.

The GPS devices, which the taxi drivers had fought in court, automatically recorded taxi trips. More and more governments, meanwhile, are installing GPS devices in their vehicles, sometimes using them to catch employees goofing off, as noted in this 2007 AP story:

GPS tracking devices installed on government-issue vehicles are helping communities around the country reduce waste and abuse, in part by catching employees shopping, working out at the gym or otherwise loafing while on the clock.

The use of GPS has led to firings, stoking complaints from employees and unions that the devices are intrusive, Big Brother technology. But city officials say that monitoring employees' movements has deterred abuses, saving the taxpayers money in gasoline and lost productivity.

"We can't have public resources being used on private activities. That's Management 101," Phil Nolan, supervisor of the Long Island town of Islip.

Private investigators use them too, though not always to the intended effect:

Horry County Police responded Thursday to Socastee Elementary School after receiving a call about a suspicious package, according to a police report.

A woman picking up her children from the school noticed a suspicious-looking box while walking out to her vehicle and thought it possibly was a bomb placed there by her estranged husband, the report stated.

The box, which was about five inches long and three inches thick, was hanging below her car's bumper. It turned out to be a GPS tracking device placed on the vehicle by a private investigator, the report stated. The woman told police that her husband has a private investigator following and investigating her.

What I haven't seen, maybe because I haven't been looking very hard, is reporters demanding GPS records under open records laws as part of their own investigations.