Tag Archives: Geolocation
Facial Blurring = Securing Individual Privacy?
There is really a certain ‘ick’ reaction when some public images are captured and then widely disseminated online (such as the above Google Streetview picture) – there is an expectation that certain contextual, culturally specific privacy norms carry over into ‘public’ spaces…companies that want to avoid doing evil would be well served to realize privacy as a cultural, rather than an engineering, issue. Continue reading
Update: Geolocation and Yahoo!’s Fire Eagle
Given the Mozilla is currently developing their Fennec browser for mobile environments, it suggests that the Fire Eagle plugin could come to phones and other mobile devices that are Internet-by-WiFi but not GPS or data plan enabled. Using a browser plugin, it should be possible to identify your location on a map simply by being in vicinity to wireless APs, regardless of whether you can actually authenticate to them (similar to how users with iPod Touches can currently roughly locate themselves on Google Maps via WiFi MAC address detection). Below is an image of Mozilla’s beta-version of Fennec. 
( Source ) As a person with an iPod Touch, I absolutely adore it’s WiFi location features – I haven’t gotten lost in my new city since purchasing the Touch. Continue reading
Comment: Google Latitude
On the one hand, I think that some of the criticisms towards the ‘privacy’ features of the program have been innane – at least one privacy advocate’s core ‘contribution’ to has been a worry that individuals might be given a phone with Latitude installed and active, without knowing about its presence or activation. … What hasn’t been addressed (at least as far as I’ve read), is that the UI for the Latitude program is actually very explicit when it comes to where to adjust your privacy settings – see the image below for just how clear it is. 
Google isn’t hiding the fact that people want to adjust their privacy – it’s two ‘clicks’ away from the google maps screen (‘Options’ >> ‘Privacy’).
…Consumers are more likely to watch a video that’s a few minutes long than read a privacy policy, and will likely only watch this video if it is either put in their face, or they are actively interested in the privacy policies associated with the service. Continue reading
Update: Mobiles and Your Identity
Last year I authored a post entitled “Mobiles and Your Identity“, where I attempted to unpack some of the privacy and surveillance concerns that are associated with smart phones, such as RIM’s Blackberry and Apple’s iPhone. In particular, I focused … Continue reading
