1.3.1. Context and Privacy

What is Context?

Context is any information that can be used to characterise the situation of an entity. An entity is a person, place, or object that is considered relevant to the interaction between a user and an application. This can include the user and applications themselves (Dey 2001). Various researchers have attempted to classify the different kinds of physical, social and cultural contexts that are relevant to a user when accessing an information service. For example, (Schilit et al. 1994); (Abowd et al. 1999); (Chen et al. 2000); (Dey 2001); (Mitchell 2002).

(2003) developed one such classification with specific reference to mobile services that are map-based. They define 9 types of context:

1. Mobile map user
2. Location
3. Time
4. Purpose of use
5. Social and cultural situation
6. Physical Surroundings
7. Orientation
8. Navigation history
9. System Properties

Privacy

The sensing of context helps to deliver tailored information for a specific user, for instance to a visitor of a National Park as described by (2003). Such a park visitor could be interested in places where mushrooms did grow in the last years or where the next campfire location is. On the other hand context sensing raises many privacy concerns if people are tracked by their position or by analysing their preferences and action history. Such history analysis on one hand helps business applications to get a perfect customer model but can on the other hand raise user fears. Thus, context sensing is closely related to user security and privacy. To reduce user fears the user should be always informed about the information which is collected and the security of data transfer. Further, LBS user should have an option to decide if context based service features are turned on or off.
(2003) discuss in her "Geoslavery" article possible misuse of LBS techniques and describe possible threats to what Gorge (1949) calls "Big brother is watching you!" in his book "1984". We (the authors) like to recommend reading of the article to get a different view on what possibilities LBS technology offers.