Location-Sharing Technologies: Privacy Risks and Controls
ARTICLE SUMMARY
This article attempts to gauge user opinions about the risks and benefits of location-sharing technologies.
POLICY RELEVANCE
With the increasing value of mobile advertising, companies are eager for users to adopt location-sharing technologies. However, at this point inadequate privacy protections prevent large-scale user acceptance of these programs.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
- Location-sharing technologies (LST) are phone applications or computer software that have the ability to track a user’s location, either via GPS or other process, and relay that location to others, be they friends or advertisers.
- With mobile marketing, which relies on LST applications, projected to reach 24 billion dollars in revenue in 2013, companies are eager to get users to adopt LST technology. However, users have been slow to allow companies to use this type of information.
- Previous research has shown that users are concerned that there are no adequate privacy protections in existence that will protect their location history and information if they begin using LSTs. Moreover, users are worried about how companies will use this new information.
- It appears that users’ concerns may be justified, as only two-thirds of LST applications had any form of privacy policy, and that many of the privacy polices in use were inadequate.
- In order to get a better idea of why users are hesitant to adopt LSTs, an online study was conducted asking users to weigh the benefits of LSTs against the risks. The results of that study are as follows:
- Users were most concerned about revealing their location to others, including the risk of being stalked
- Users considered the ability to find individuals in emergency situations and keeping track of their children the most important and best uses of LST.
- Users were most concerned about revealing their location to others, including the risk of being stalked
- In order to garner greater acceptance with users, LST companies should create more expressive privacy policies and create application functions that are more important to users than connecting with friends.
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About Lorrie Faith Cranor
Lorrie Faith Cranor is the Director and Bosch Distinguished Professor in Security and Privacy Technologies of CyLab and the FORE Systems Professor of Computer Science and of Engineering and Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University. She also directs the CyLab Usable Privacy and Security Laboratory (CUPS) and co-directs the MSIT-Privacy Engineering masters program. She teaches courses on privacy, usable security, and computers and society.
