A framework for analysing location data

Degree of Data
1st Degree. Explicitly Declared
2nd Degree. Inferred

Personal User Identifiable Consent Data

Directly
Indirectly Heuristically

Data Quality
Accurate
Complete Timely

Access Rights
User
Friend of User 3rd Party Everyone

Data Publisher
User
System 3rd Party

Explicit
Implicit

3rd Degree. Non PI Heuristically Inferred

Analysis of 30 technical systems from Ubicomp and Mobile HCI conferences based on the properties shown on the table above. The analysis shows the catalyst role of location data in inferring and aggregating other data, even noncontextual data.
30
30 25 20 15 10 5 0 Total Systems

15 5 27%

17% 56%

Systems where location affects primarily the type of info published Systems where location affects but NOT primarily the type of info published Systems where location does NOT affect the type of info published

Systems that Systems with 3rd make 3rd degree degree inferences inferences without semantic relation to location data

Attitudes versus Behaviours

60 50 40 30 20 10 How concerned are you about threats to your online privacy? How concerned are you about the fact that your location might be used for other purposes too? Facebook Twitter Foursquare 16% 31% 33% 27% 20% 17% 57% 49% 50%

IMDb 49 45
Very Concerned

54%
71% Yes Maybe

7%

39%
11% 18%

49 52
Somewhat concerned

21 22
Not very concerned

Wikipedia

Not Don't know concerned at all

No

Scenario-based questions for the users of each app: Would you publish your location in this app in this scenario?

- An online survey with 150 participants. - Real-life scenarios were used (e.g. posting about a concert on Twitter) to investigate peoples behaviour regarding location data (right figure); - Likert scale questions were used to explore peoples attitudes in theory (left figure). - No correlation between peoples attitudes and their answers to the scenarios. - Participants were also asked to justify their answer to each scenario. The purpose was to explore the underlying reasons for their decisions. The thematic analysis shows that privacy decisions can be seen as part of a process of structuration, where attitudes and values (peoples free agency) are tempered by situation and context (external structure).
Comfortable sharing my location No use of sharing my location Application Benefits (convenient) Concerns over data manipulation Public event / work-related Private event

Aristea M. Zafeiropoulou az4g09@ecs.soton.ac.uk