Conclusion

Identity theft is clearly a contested issue within the United States. By some considered a big problem whereas by others merely an exaggerated media item. A large majority of policy makers, consumer advocates, law enforcement agents and even business officials understand how identity theft generally causes both individual victims and society in general a lot of damage. Whether the problem is increasing or decreasing is, however, murky and contested territory. Despite all of its experience, the United States remains in search of both an accurate picture of the prevalence of identity theft as well as a system of countermeasures which can be effective enough to reduce the problem.

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D12.10: Normality Mining: Results from a Tracking Study

Within FIDIS, WP3 and WP12 have dealt with RFID, WP11 has investigated
mobility and identity while WP6 has examined biometrics and WP7 profiling.
The aim of this report is to bring these disparate threads together into a tangible
study which will demonstrate privacy issues surrounding products and services
which are likely to start emerging on to the consumer market.
New generations of mobile handsets, with integrated devices like GPS and
internet capabilities, are becoming less like traditional phones. In fact we
should stop viewing them as simply mobile phones - they are now more like
mobile computers which can make phone calls. These advances in mobile
technologies will inevitably lead to new services which we can enjoy anywhere,
anytime. Location Based Services which utilise the phone’s GPS to tell us for
example where we are, or where the nearest cinema is, are an obvious first step
– but what happens if the phone monitors where we go at all times? Can these
new services build a picture of who we are based on where we have been? Can
they use this profile of us to understand what we like and tailor their results
specifically to us? And if so, at what cost to our privacy? In this report, aimed
at the potential consumers of such services, we will look at results from a recent
tracking study which examines these issues.

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