Imagine this scenario: You’re driving down the road and you see someone behaving erratically, either bearing down on you too aggressively or perhaps operating under the influence.

Instead of wondering what you should or can do, you pull out your GPS-enabled smartphone and call up an application designed specifically to inform the police of such activities and then call the cops to report the menacing driver, based precisely on the location that you’re calling from.

That’s a pretty scary proposition to a Boston driver like myself, but, it’s without question a powerful new capability at our disposal.

And this concept isn’t just a theory, applications for gathering and reporting information in real time based on personal and geo-location data are becoming increasingly popular with the launch of new products for Web-enabled handheld devices such as the Apple iPhone.

One such tool that has received a lot of mainstream media attention of late is Offender Locator, a mobile app that allows people to search for registered sex offenders who may be living close to their homes or their children’s playgrounds.

Another is Date Check, which has less of a GPS bent, but is aimed at allowing people to run background checks on potential love partners to see if they might already be married, or have some unseemly events tied to their personal history.

All of the above represent truly cutting-edge and valuable technologies that tap into the ongoing mobile Web evolution, arming users with previously unseen capabilities for getting their hands on extremely detailed information about other people and their personas and immediate whereabouts.

However, it doesn’t take too much consideration to realize that these wonderful wireless applications also present significant security concerns, based on the nature and volume of the data that they hold.

Consider other mobile dating applications such as Skout, Match and Are You Interested. These tools offer to buzz your cell phone when someone considered compatible to your romantic profile is located in your immediate vicinity.

Not only do these applications offer the ability to identify you and your likes and dislikes to potential cyber-attackers, they also blend the ability to deduce your location to people in the physical world.

Consider the possibilities for someone to carry out a physical assault, let alone a virtual attack, if they know who you are and where you are at any given time. If I was someone looking to rob your house or a jilted ex-boyfriend planning to stalk your movements, these seemingly innocuous tools would seem to provide a lot of helpful information to do that.

In the computing world, these applications, like other social media tools, unquestionably add another level of risk in terms of allowing someone to create targeted attacks to assail you with in assuming your likeness for identity fraud.

And for applications such as Offender Locator and Date Check, we really need to consider how much information we want to share about ourselves in the online world, or merely how much we trust the information these tools will provide.

Natural questions pop up such as, how much information about us is out there, where do these applications source their findings, or how good of a job the companies behind them do in protecting your personal information?

It’s scary to think that there might be more data out there about you than you want anyone to know, or that it might be somehow incorrect. For instance, Date Check returns initial results for a lot of guys named Matt Hines who aren’t me. If I wasn’t married I guess I’d have to hope that none are convicted criminals if I didn’t want to start losing romantic opportunities.

Yes, when it comes down to it, there are many services out there already that allow people to run in-depth background checks on you, but not many that fit in the palm of your hand, are offered so cheaply, or include your physical location.

It’s not to be a doomsayer, as some of these applications have been out there for years with no known reports of violent personal intrusions; but if you’re concerned at all about guardedly protecting your privacy, you probably may not want to sign up.

Choosing whether or not to embrace these tools and other social networking systems will always come down to a personal choice regarding your level of privacy comfort.

And as they do come along, please don’t call in the guy with the Mass. plates in the giant black SUV running up on you in the passing lane. Just pull over, and share my hope that we can still enjoy some modicum of obscurity, because who wants anyone with an iPhone to be able to get up in all of your business.

Especially when you’re already late for work to begin with.

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