Patterns — location
Definition
As location tracking capabilities of mobile devices are increasing, problems related to user privacy arise, since user's position and preferences constitute personal information and improper use of them violates user's privacy. Several methods to protect user's privacy when using location based services have been proposed, including the use of anonymizing servers, blurring of information e.a. Methods to quantify privacy have also been proposed, to be able to calculate the equilibrium between the benefit of providing accurate location information and the drawbacks of risking personal privacy.Users of such services may also choose to display more generic location information (i.e. "In the City" or "Philadelphia" or "Work") to some of their more casual acquaintances while only displaying specific location information, such as their exact address, to closer contacts like spouse, relatives, and good friends.
Source: Wikipedia
-
Ambient notice
Provide an ambient notice (unobtrusive, non-modal) when location is being accessed to increase awareness of ongoing tracking.
-
Strip Invisible Metadata
Strip potentially sensitive metadata that isn't directly visible to the end user.
-
Active broadcast of presence
Users may choose actively when they want to share presence information, to increase both the relevance of, and control over, sharing.
-
Privacy dashboard
An informational privacy dashboard can provide collected summaries of the collected or processed personal data for a particular user.
-
Asynchronous notice
How can a service effectively provide notice to a user who gave permission once but whose information is accessed repeatedly (perhaps even continuously) over a long period of time? Proactively notify the user after the time of consent that information is being tracked, stored or re-distributed.
-
Location Granularity
Support minimization of data collection and distribution. Important when a service is collecting location data from or about a user, or transmitting location data about a user to a third-party.