My Bike Is My Car

I recently signed up for a free service that uses the wireless card on my laptop to monitor the laptop’s location. The service is free and totally password-protected: only I can find out the location of the laptop. Not even the service provider has access to this information. If the laptop is stolen, I simply put in a request to track it, input my password and get the information.

Is there any way to develop something like this for bicycles? I know that in Brazil, where car theft is epidemic, many car owners choose to have satellite tracking systems as an added feature in their cars. In fact, at one point the legislature was seriously considering mandating this on all new cars (probably as part of some elaborate kickback scheme that politicians rigged). What would something like the laptop wireless tracking system have to look like for a bicycle? Perhaps it could be an innocent little bike computer attached to the handlebar… only with a tiny gps unit or wireless card that sends out a signal occasionally that is then logged in a database that can be accessed if the bike is stolen. Could that work?