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Radio 4,29 Nov 2019,14 mins

Available for over a year

What would happen if GPS (the Global Positioning System) stopped working? From emergency services to ride-sharing apps to just-in-time supermarket logistics networks, the ability to navigate using GPS is baked into the economy. And that鈥檚 just the start. GPS is not so much a location service as a time service. Power grids, stock markets and cloud computing all depend on the ability to agree on the exact time. No wonder GPS is sometimes called the 鈥渋nvisible utility鈥. But Tim Harford thinks that perhaps what we should really fear is not so much GPS signals going down, as being spoofed in ways we fail to notice. Producer: Ben Crighton Editor: Richard Vadon

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