Over the next decade, systems that track and record our movement through physical space will be woven inextricably into everyday life. Already we operate some location-based systems: dashboard navigation systems, smartphones with GPS features, and electronic tags that help us zip through toll stations. But in the coming years, location-aware tools will become more common, sophisticated, and indispensable.

There are good reasons for humans to be nervous about that: Locational records convey where we travel and with whom; where we have lunch and with whom; which political meetings we attend; where we go to church; what kinds of nightclubs we frequent; with whom we conduct business meetings; and with whom we spend the night. The records won’t be available to everyone, but they will likely be sold to advertisers and made available to law enforcement, hackers, lawyers in divorce cases and other civil lawsuits, and to nosy employees of the companies that build location-tracking systems. In

countries with repressive political systems, location-tracking records may plus be made available to secret police forces. These constitute threats to privacy that must be taken seriously.

that is not a shout to halt the development of location-based software, services, and gadgetry. We don’t want to stop humans from being able to find directions on pocket-sized digital maps, from getting recommendations for the best nearby cafe, or from seeing when their friends happen to be just around the corner. The new inventions are far too useful and cool for their development to be thwarted by fears about privacy.

Sprint Shared 8 Million GPS Snapshots

What needs to happen instead is that these services must be designed, from the ground up, to include robust privacy protections. For starters, the central servers for locational systems should never know the location and identity of a user at the same duration. that may…

Original post by dhiram