Unregulated Location Tracking Poses Privacy, Security Issues
Location-based services (LBSs) on cellphones and other handheld devices showing where users are present many privacy and security issues online social networking sites do -- and they're as unregulated, the Congressional Internet Caucus heard Wed. in Washington. Loopt, Skyhook, OnStar, Helio and others are just the start of a “social mapping” revolution, ConnectSafely.com Co-Dir. Larry Magid said: Conservative figures peg the N. American LBS market at about $750 million.
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“Social mapping is not a fad; it’s not a pet rock… not just for 15-year-olds and it’s not going away,” said Loopt Exec. Vp Mark Jacobstein. The services help “young couples pinpoint each other,” parents track children and people know when friends are nearby, Anne Collier, ConnectSafely.com co-dir., said: “The services are phenomenal.” Beyond emitting data, a social mapper confers “A-lister and hypercommunicator” status, she said. Unlike social networking sites, social mapping is “not a visible popularity contest, not as visual, not summed up in a page on the Web for all to see,” Collier said: “This is more private, more intimate.” LBS could help in emergencies, said National Emergency Number Assn. Dir. Patrick Halley. Public safety “traditionally lags behind” on the most modern technologies, he said. Today’s 911 call center looks nothing like CSI, he said.
LBS company representatives were quick to cite other differences between online social networking and social mapping. “One of huge advantages services have is that you can’t be anonymous,” Jacobstein said: “If I'm a creep, it’s probably not what I want to use.” With Loopt and other such services, each time users’ are tracked, their phones blink an opt-in message, he said: “Social networking on the Web is about reaching out to people you don’t know. But I would like to think on Loopt… you really shouldn’t be sharing your location with anybody not in your phone book.”
With location tracking power come “inherent privacy issues” to which LBS companies are sensitive, said Helio Gen. Counsel Jeremy Rossen, echoed by Jed Rice, Skyhook Wireless vp-mktg. development. “We're in this unique position of being unregulated, unmonitored,” Rice said: “We're very conscious of all these things as parents” so though “we're not subject to… restraints… we're very, very attentive to them. There’s actually a higher standard, because the fate of our company” rests on it. Loopt doesn’t keep location data, it’s erased as the user updates it, he said: “If you don’t encrypt it and treat it with the utmost care, it will be a disaster.” In some ways, LBS providers protect users better than the Internet does, Rossen said: “On a device, you can force the issue by taking up the entire screen with an alert that says this person is trying to track you.”
The govt. “clearly has compelling interests in accessing” social mapping data, said Jim Dempsey, Center for Democracy & Technology policy dir. Police may want records for criminal investigations, a challenge for industry. But companies can avoid subpoenas by keeping “less juicy stuff in the database,” said O. State U. Prof. Peter Swire. When “whatever you have the government can get” and “nothing’s more than a search warrant away,” if you don’t need the information, “don’t keep it.” CTIA is updating its best practices to reflect the rise of LBS, CTIA Senior Vp-Gen. Counsel Michael Altschul said: “We realized that for location-based services to be accepted by the public, privacy concerns had to addressed.” It’s “premature” to explain changes in detail, the “core elements” include “requiring notice and consent,” he said.