Privacy

In the Liveline project, one of the main issues to deal with was privacy of location based services. We discussed the issue extensively during a conference at the Institute for Family Sciences in Brussels.

One of the main findings of the conference was that privacy may not be quite what we think it is. Prof. Jos Dumortier pointed out that the issue of privacy was actually raised after World War II when nations felt that individuals needed to be protected against information collection organised by totalitarian states. Big brother was the keyword.

This is not the concept we have today about privacy. Today, we immediately think of neighbours spying on us using Facebook, or thieves looking at the facade of our house on Google Street View. Tomorrow, people may watch our whereabouts when our mobile phone starts registering our location. Two aspects are often overlooked here: one positive and one negative.

The positive aspect is: information science is capable of protecting and securing private information, provided the work is well done and, if possible, submitted to a certification process. You can share your data with the people you like and avoid sharing it with others. Nothing is 100% secure, but the risk can usually be brought back to an acceptable level. "Code of conduct" already exists in the business and it will mature with the technology. You will need to choose a quality service.

The negative aspect is: the danger doesn't come that much from your friends or neighbours and only rarely from ordinary thieves and criminals. The actual danger comes from commercial criminals, sitting behind computer screens. If your personal data (your purchasing habits, your location, your bank account status, etc..) are not protected well enough, you may experience soon some very nasty things. If receiving e-mails about blue pills makes you feel bad, consider what may be coming:

Being abroad, they could make you pay for zillions of unwanted SMS's when walking through a shopping mall. Driving with your colleagues to a business destination, you may all of a sudden receive a voice message asking everybody to look at the right where your favourite 'pub' or 'shop' is located. You may receive all kinds of publicity about things you are interested in or about things you just seem to be interested in. It will be sufficient you visited the web site at some point in time. Or perhaps it was just your best Facebook friend who visited the web site.

Anyhow, your boss and your employees will know what you like. I hope you will know it. It will be like e-mail spam: as soon as the ghost has left the lamp, it will be difficult to stop him. I wish you good luck in defining your user profile.