past failures, 11 federal attorneys continue to argue that the government should be granted access to mobile phone location information without probable cause. 2 Although the courts have consistently rejected these arguments, the implication is clear— governments place a great deal of value on knowing our whereabouts and movement patterns, and are actively seeking a legal pathway to gaining such information.

to track or not to track

As with any new technology that has implications for our personal privacy, human mobility tracking is currently a divisive and highly controversial issue. The future of this activity will therefore depend on how we as a society collectively judge its costs and benefits. On the one hand, concerned citizens, privacy advocates, and organizations such as the ACLU recognize the immense potential for government malfeasance and corporate abuse of this technology. 10 Such concerns should not be ignored or easily dismissed, because the current federal law that governs electronic privacy—the Electronic Communications Privacy Act—does not specifically address human mobility tracking. On the other hand, many scientists, corporations, and individual consumers see immense social and monetary value in this technology. Evidence for this can be seen in the rapid growth of GPS-based services such as Foursquare, Gowalla, and Facebook Places, and in the fact that revenue from human mobility tracking is expected by some researchers to reach nearly $13 billion by 2014.7

When coupled with demonstrable scientific and social benefits, the po-

in a sense, we all
choose to allow
these parties to
gather information
about us.

tential for companies to earn so much money from human mobility tracking makes it nearly impossible to imagine a future without it. If the expansion of human mobility tracking is indeed inevitable, then we must collectively be willing to accept the responsibilities that come along with it. First, I believe we owe it to ourselves to further study the impacts of this technology. Further, we must recognize the privacy implications of human mobility tracking, and act ethically when developing location-based services. Finally, we must all remain eternally vigilant against any corporations, governments, or individuals who might seek to misuse or abuse this technology at our expense.

the Path ahead

Given the many potentially unethical or otherwise questionable uses to which human mobility tracking might be applied, these activities seem a natural target for legal regulation. Direct government regulation of private-sector human mobility tracking could, however, impede the many efforts in this area that are being directed at genuinely altruistic ends. For this reason, I believe all wireless service providers, mobile app developers, and other computing professionals involved in GPS-based human mobility tracking should take proactive steps toward self-regulation. A good place to start would be the voluntary adoption of a set of principles designed to protect customer location data, such as those proposed in the Wireless Association’s Best Practices and Guidelines for Location Based Services. 3 Further, although mobility tracking is just beginning to enter the public consciousness, researchers in ubiquitous computing have been studying these issues for several years, and their efforts may prove to be a wellspring of useful ideas. If we as a global community of computing professionals can agree to behave responsibly, then it may be possible to help protect our collective privacy, stave off government regulation, and allow human mobility modeling to develop at a natural pace.

Whether or not researchers, corpo-
rations, and governments are able to
acquire and benefit from knowledge
about our individual locations and
movements is largely up to us. In a
sense, we all choose to allow these par-
ties to gather information about us. By
opting to use the mobile technologies
and apps that enable our locations
and movements to be recorded, we are
agreeing, either explicitly or implic-
itly, to allow others to benefit from our
personal information. Once we have
lost ownership of our location infor-
mation, another party may, within the
boundaries of the law, use or sell that
information for profit without our per-
mission. While for now we might take
some comfort in knowing we can flip
the switch to “off,” the increasingly
ubiquitous nature of mobile comput-
ing technologies implies they will
soon become difficult to avoid.

conclusion

Ultimately, it appears that if we want to enjoy the many benefits afforded by mobile computing technologies, we must be willing to give up at least some of the privacy that was enjoyed by previous generations. This is, it would seem, the price we all must pay to live in a modern, technology-driven world.

References

1. barabasi, a.-l. Bursts: The Hidden Pattern Behind Everything We Do. Penguin group, new york, 2010.

2. buchanan, m.b. and eberhardt, r.e. in the matter of the application of the united states of america for an order directing a provider of electronic communication service to disclose records to the government. united states court of appeals for the third circuit, 2010.

3. ctia. Best Practices and Guidelines for Location Based Services. the wireless association, washington, D.c., 2010.

4. gonzález, m.c., hidalgo, c.a., and barabási, a.-l. understanding individual human mobility patterns. Nature 453 (2008), 779–782.

5. hill, J., horton, m., Kling, r., and Krishnamurthy, l. the platforms enabling wireless sensor networks. Commun. ACM 47, 6 (June 2004), 41–46.

6. itu. Measuring the Information Society. international telecommunication union. geneva, switzerland, 2010.

7. Mobile Location Based Services: Applications, Forecasts & Opportunities. Juniper research ltd, basingstoke, hampshire, u.K., 2010.

8. modeling human mobility (acm news). Commun. ACM web site (apr. 28, 2010).

9. mitchell, t.m. mining our reality. Science 326 (2009), 16441645.

10. ozer, n.a., conley, c., o¹connell, h., ginsburg, e., and gubins, t. Location-Based Services: Time for a Privacy Check-In. american civil liberties union (aclu), san Francisco, ca, 2010.

11. singel, r. u.s. cell-phone tracking clipped. Wired (2005); http://www.wired.com/news/ print/0,1294,69390, 00.html.

12. song, c., Qu, Z., blumm, n., and barabási, a.-l. limits of predictability in human mobility. Science 327 (2010), 10181021.

13. thompson, D. google’s ceo: “the laws are written by lobbyists.” The Atlantic (oct. 1, 2010).

Daniel Soper ( [e-mail]) is a member of the faculty of the information systems and decision sciences department at california state university, Fullerton.

copyright held by author.