Over the past posts I have explored the emerging field of location-based services, and their implications for users, corporations, and marketers. Readers, I'm sorry to say that this will be my last official post for this Quarter. If I come across anything new or exciting, I will make sure to update you, however this is the end of my weekly posts. That being said, I wanted to leave you with a rather overall view of the technology, encompassing the ideas I have presented over the past few months. I was directed to such an article recently and would like to share with you the interesting but disturbing news I gleaned.
First off, the worries I have been addressing, the location-based services that collect and aggregate locational information, are no longer a "future" technology. They are here, front and center. While many of my previous posts have addressed the technology in relation to specific phone applications that are debatably popular and usually restricted to smart-phones. This article went farther, explaining that any phone could be tracked using cell-tower triangulation. Blackberries even send heartbeats to the mobile operator, while GPS and Wi-Fi make your position even more accurate. Even scarier, this data is already being provided to third-parties for analysis!
Every destination is now tracked, and therefore addresses of your home, work, school, or gym become public knowledge. These corporations, often advertisers, know every frequent or infrequent location that you take your phone or GPS unit on. The interesting part is prediction. The data holder can predict where you will be at any certain time, from location, to route, to the people that join you. The ramifications are huge, with an intricate web of advantages and disadvantages that can no longer be avoided.
Naturally, these services are USEFUL, helping citizens go about their lives more efficiently and companies market their products more effectively. But at the same time we are LOOSING something when we surrender our privacy for this benefit.
One of the main points that has wavered between convincing me and providing no comfort is the idea of giving less data to the service provider. Based on my reading of Blown to Bits, it is evident that de-identified data can be re-identified, however it seemed logical that if only the locational data were provided, without the name or address, the system would be safe. Unfortunately, this article explains how even by assigning a number to a user's transactions, a home and work address can become evident and from there other personal data can be inferred. This aggregation and use of data is still expanding, however organizations are learning to process more data faster, enabling the technology while degrading the user's privacy. Especially because this information is often put online, it becomes available to even more sources and therefore able to be copied into permanence.
The solutions to this problem seem insufficient, however they are certainly better than nothing. Asking users to stop using mobile devices, or only use them at work is unreasonable, while disposable devices are wasteful and not cost-effective. Unwilling to be inconvenienced in this way, many customers will continue using the devices and services, but hopefully the proliferation of articles and posts such as these will enlighten them as to the dangers of the technology. While enlightenment won't solve any problems directly, knowledge of the data that service providers can collect gives users the chance to decide whether to opt out of the service or not.
And for now, that is the message I leave you with. Keep sharing the truth about location-based services and privacy. Stay aware, read privacy agreements, and be responsible about your use of location-based services and devices. Looking into the future, the ability to protect privacy through design is the ideal option to protect our individual liberty and security. The designers of new technology have the option of creating these new protections, which is one of our best hopes for privacy protection in modern life.
Source: http://jeffjonas.typepad.com/jeff_jonas/2009/08/your-movements-speak-for-themselves-spacetime-travel-data-is-analytic-superfood.html
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