Title: LBS, MOBILE IDENTITIES, PROFILES AND USERS’ CONTROL

LBS, Mobile Identities, Profiles and Users’ Control

Referring to FIDIS deliverable D11.1, mobile identities can be described as:  

“[…] a partial identity, which is connected to the mobility of the subject itself, including location data. The mobile identity may be addressable by the mobile ID. (…) Furthermore the mobility of a subject may be observed by others including the deployment of tracking mechanisms with respect to biometric properties, e.g., by a comprehensive video surveillance.”(Müller et al., 2005)

Looking at the properties of mobile services in general, especially the context awareness of mobile services can affect the impact on a user’s mobile identity, when using a LBS. The availability of user’s location combined with information about the interests or combined with information about the area he / she is situated in lead to a better understanding of the present user context. Mobile services allow to consider the following types of user contexts:

1. 1. Local context(user’s current place / time)

   2. Action context

   3. Time context(user’s current time combined with time relevant information)

   4. Interests specific context(local, action and time context combined with personal user preferences)

Assuming that the different types of available context information affect a user’s identity, the mobile identity consists of the user’s time, location and attributes that have been derived from combining location and time information with relevant information about the user’s self (e.g. interest specific context) or about the location of the user (action specific context).  

Figure 7 shows how LBS can extend Alice’s mobile identity through connecting her local context with additional geo information about the area she is situated in. In this example, Alice is at a certain time (Saturday, 3 p.m.) at a certain place (soccer stadium).  

The external geo context information is a soccer match that takes place in the stadium at this point of time. A possible assumption and extension of Alice’s mobile identity could be that Alice is currently watching soccer. Any person or service that has this background information about Alice’s location can attribute this (subjective) action specific context to her identity creating a profile of Alice. 

Figure : Extension of the Mobile Identity through the Action Specific User Context.

To a certain degree, the (profiling) conclusions that can be drawn about Alice’s identity by using her action specific context are out of Alice’s control. Thus, the amount of control users have about their identity can depend on the type of the location based service.  

Figure : Impact on users’ control depending on service properties.

The perceived control with regard to the mobile identity depends on two factors:  

1. On the way the service is initiated (push vs. pull) and  

2. On the way the profile is created (direct vs. indirect)  

A high control is possible if the data subjects / users are able to initialise the service by themselves (pull service). In this case they are aware that the service is enabled and can estimate the types of data that will be processed in order to provide the service.  

Another aspect that affects the users’ control about their mobile identity is the way how their user profile is derived. The user profile can be a critical piece of information as it is the baseline for the derivation of the interest specific context. Control of the user profile thereby influences the amount of users’ control about their mobile identity. Direct profile creation means that the user himself is able to deliver and change the data of his user profile (maybe supported by an identity management system). Indirect profile creation is done by a third party. The data subjects / users even may not be aware that such a profile is created. If the information of the user profiles does not match with the real identity profile, the wrong conclusions can be drawn and assigned to one’s identity. In any case it clear, that LBS have a major impact on the (mobile) identities of persons.