Privacy-aware geolocation interfaces for volunteered geography

Abstract

The standard W3C Geolocation API can significantly facilitate geospatial data collection as it provides a simple set of operations for requesting geolocation services across indoor and outdoor spaces through the Web. Importantly, this API is privacy-aware in that it provides a basic privacy mechanism for requesting the user's consent to location acquisition. In this paper we address the question on whether this privacy mechanism is su cient to conduct a project for the collection of geospatial content, in compliance with privacy laws. The question is of practical relevance as the use of geolocation standards in line with privacy regulations would make the development of volunteered geography projects easier. In this paper we present an interdisciplinary analysis spanning across technology and law, and driven by an application case. We show the limitations of this API and discuss a possible extension in line with privacy norms. Although we confine ourselves to consider European regulations, we believe that this study can be of more general concern.

Privacy Challenges in Third-Party Location Services

“…Figure 2 highlights the request of user's consent. The research question we address in [1] is whether the privacy mechanisms offered by the W3C geo-location API for the collection of personal location data (i.e. user's consent), is sufficient to comply with data protection norms in Europe.…”

“…whether the privacy mechanism of the W3C is aligned with data protection norms in Europe, this is a complex issue which calls for an interdisciplinary analysis. The analysis conducted in [1] assumes the applicability of the ePrivacy Directive without entering into the discussion whether or not the ePrivacy Directive is applicable. The two major issues regard the nature of user's consent and the role of data controller.…”

“…In other words, making it illegal. Besides this major issue, the analysis leads to a whole array of legal questions while suggesting technical enhancements of the API [1].…”