Allowing competitors to carry smartphones needn’t pose a significant risk that those devices will be used for an unfair advantage. Indeed, relatively simple GPS devices carry a much greater risk of abuse.
GPS is Easily Abused
Consider that even the dumbest GPS wrist devices can provide undetected navigation assistance to the user. Simple GPS watches can record waypoints and measure distances and angles to those waypoints. They also often provide graphic displays that can be used to view user-created waypoints and the user’s track. A single waypoint entered by a competitor near the start area of a course enables a GPS to provide distance and angle to the start from any location on the course. Then it is a simple matter to utilize that GPS-derived information to deduce one’s location on the map – no compass or map-reading ability required! Much more advanced navigation features are available on some GPS models.
Smartphones Can Prevent Abuse
Unlike GPS devices, most smartphones, even very old ones, are sophisticated enough to run a monitor app that would prevent the undetected use of the smartphone’s navigation or communication features. While an app is running in the foreground, a smartphone is capable only of performing those functions that the app is capable of providing. A monitor app that provides no navigation or communication features would effectively prevent the misuse of such banned hardware features for so long as the app is running. A monitor app could also detect when the app itself has left the foreground or has been closed, and record (or even report in real time) the event for review by a Jury. So a smartphone running a properly-designed monitor app would not be able to provide banned features without the violation being detected by authorities.
Monitor apps could also provide allowed features, such as GPS track recording for post-competition analysis, thereby allowing smartphones running monitor apps to replace more easily-abused GPS devices. A clever monitor app could even “geofence” exclusion areas, preventing competitors from entering them undetected. A geofence around the entire map boundary might be used to enhance safety by informing competitors when they have left the region covered by the map.
Summary
There is no need to ban competitors from carrying hardware devices capable of providing an unfair advantage. Rather, competitors must be required to run appropriate software on any devices that they choose to carry. That software must disallow competitors from accessing and utilizing the hardware in an unfair manner without detection.
Instead of banning particular hardware devices, rules should be written to address the unreported use of disallowed functionality, such as navigation assistance, or 2-way communications.