|
You are where you’ve been |
|
Technological threats to your location privacy |
|
Roger Clarke
Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd; Visiting Professor, Faculty of Law, UNSW |
|
Authorised By :: School of Surveying & Spatial Information Systems
|
|
Roger Clarke is a consultant specialising in strategic and policy aspects of eBusiness, information infrastructure, and data surveillance and privacy. He has been active in the information technology industry for 40 years.
He spent a decade as a senior Information Systems academic at the Australian National University, before returning to full-time consultancy in 1995. He holds Visiting Professorships at the University of N.S.W. (in Cyberspace Law & Policy), at the University of Hong Kong (in eCommerce), and at the A.N.U. (in Computer Science). He has been on the Board of the Australian Privacy Foundation since its inception in 1987, and is currently its Chair. http://www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/Person.html |
|
You are where you’ve been : Location Technologies' Deep Privacy Impact'
Abstract Nearly a decade ago, Clarke(1999) reviewed location and tracking in a somewhat simpler world. The paper noted increasing intensity in the collection of transaction data, in the association of personal identifiers with that data, in the retention of that data, and in mining of that data. It also referred to the emergence of spies in people's pockets, wallets and purses (smartcards and cellular mobile phones), and in their cars (toll-road tags, and tagging by car-hire companies, insurers and investigators). Those technologies are now well-established, and lack any form of regulatory framework. IP-address location remains laughably inaccurate. Cellular triangulation and signal-differential techniques, and self-reporting of GPS measurements, are also error-prone, but their accuracy and precision appear to be improving. RFID and NFC devices identify and locate chips with reasonable reliability, and, because of their short range, with considerable accuracy. Meanwhile, ANPR surveillance of traffic is being introduced without even the slightest regard for its impact on privacy and freedom. This presentation briefly surveys the privacy impacts of location technologies, in order to set the scene for subsequent, more focussed papers. It extends beyond location, however, to the tracking of people's movements both real-time, and retrospectively. 'You are what you eat'; but for many purposes it's also true that 'you are where you've been'. Marketers have an interest in identifying population segments and networks, and in building personal behaviour profiles. More sinister applications arise because so-called 'counter-terrorism' laws have greatly reduced the controls over data gathering, storage and access, over inferencing about where people have been and whose paths people have crossed, and over detention, interrogation and prosecution. Information technology shares a key characteristic with an elephant: it doesn't know how to forget. It needs to be taught how, and very quickly. |
