A Geoprivacy Manifesto (Keßler & McKenzie, 2018)

In this paper, the authors describe the current states of the art of location privacy and formulate challenges. The first of the 21 theses in the manifesto on geoprivacy states that location privacy stands apart from information privacy. The reasons for this include the range of inferences that can be drawn from location, the ease of capturing individuals’ locations, and the incentives which draw users to share their locations with service providers. As a special form of information privacy, is it adequate to apply information privacy models and algorithms for location privacy protection? Additionally, different users tend to have various location privacy requirements. How to enhance the available information privacy techniques to protect location privacy?

What I am also interested in is the benefits of sharing locations. The authors mention that location privacy is intricately related to service quality. The service provider processes a request based on its understanding regarding customers’ location, and more precise location information leads to higher quality of the service delivered. Besides helping to improve service quality, sharing locations is being able to find people in emergencies. Therefore, I wonder if people would become more comfortable with sharing their locations when they feel the benefits outweigh the risks.

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