Location as a Preference

If you search the Internet about location and privacy these days there is an overwhelming number of discussions about the impact of capturing and broadcasting a person’s location and how it affects their privacy.

We’ve just begun to tap into the power of personal location and we have yet to see the true security and privacy implications. As a younger generation grows up with a (seemingly) disregard for personal privacy, I’m reminded of when I was a teenager, in the mid-1980’s, that I had my social security number printed on my checks so that retailers would accept them. However, after a few months of “real-world” experience I soon came to the conclusion this was not a good idea and reprinted checks with far less personal information.

When it comes to location sharing, are kids and college students really more open about sharing personal information? Or are they so focused on the benefits of sharing information with their friends that they completely ignore the fact that others could use this information in a not-so-friendly way?

A few years ago, as the first generation of Facebook-enabled college students rolled into the economy they were shocked to find employers looking at their Facebook pages as part of the interview process. This is quite a slap in the face for our trusting youth that we look to for paving the way to a less private world.

As personal location weaves its way into our lives people will seek counter balances that help them control their exposure. Much like the dynamic between police with their radar guns and drivers with “fuzz buster” radar detectors, location services can provide benefits to both the publisher (i.e., people) and the consumers of location information.

Consider a friend-finder an app that gives me several levels of control for broadcasting my location. For example, I have people in my address book that live in different cities from me, people that are business contacts, people that I consider friends and family. Since my relationship is different for each of these groups, I have personal preferences for when, why, and where I’d like to share my location information with each of them. For example, I’d like to hide my location from business contacts in other cities unless both of us happen to be in the same town. Perhaps they visit my city or I visit their city. Or perhaps we end up in the same city or airport just by chance. Using location as a preference, my friend-finder app behaves differently based on where I am, who is nearby, and my personal association with this individual.

Similarly, during the workweek perhaps I share my location with co-workers. But on the weekend, my time is my own and I don’t care to have my work colleagues watching me make repeated trips to Home Depot or take my kids to soccer practice. So my location service should turn off my location broadcast to certain people based on my work and personal schedule.

Playing on this theme, we can even go further. Suppose I stay home on a workday. Is my friend-finder app smart enough to detect my typical pattern of travel? Is is smart enough to infer that on typical work days I leave the house, but on this workday I didn’t leave my house? Could the app detect this anomaly and prompt me to resolve the discrepancy? Could my location broadcast service enter a “safe” mode until I respond to the prompt?

My point is I’d like to have options for sharing my location that extend beyond city level or best available location. Sharing should take into account my personal relationship with other individuals and groups as well as my current location, my typical travel patterns, the places I visit, my schedules, and other preferences.