If that's the case then that puts the manufacturers at odds with FAA regulations.
Not exactly, the E911 features are polled, that is that they do not go active until someone sends a message on the paging channel which will wake up the phone and cause it to respond with the location data on the access channel. This is real handy if something like a building falls on you and rescuers are looking for you, but as with most technology that increases out safety, it can just as easily be used for not so good reasons.
The latest thing in the mobile industry may soon be to sell your location data to retailers. The law on this is real fuzzy. A good example I recently heard is your mobile provider sees that your usual daily trips to Starbucks has decreased and sells this data to Dunkin Doughnuts as a potential dissatisfied coffee drinker prime for maybe a coupon enticement. Another real example is that here in Chicago, the snow plow drivers threatened to walk off of the job because their new phones were location capable and the snow plowing management could tell if you were loafing. Loafing in Chicago by city workers is a right, not a privilege. Some fancy negotiations with the unions ironed everything out but face it, we are being watched.
