Six Lines

Geolocation Privacy

Posted by Aaron Massey on 16 Jul 2010.

Geolocation technologies were always destined to spark considerable privacy and security debates because the whole point of the technology is to identify or disseminate information that can be incredibly sensitive in a particular context. Chatroulette, an anonymous chatting service, provides a simple example. Researchers were able to us IP geolocation, among other technologies, to identify the ‘anonymous’ users of Chatroulette. Location-tagging cameras provide another example since several celebrities have been bitten by cameras that automatically add location data to photos. We’re going to continue seeing stories like these for some time to come since location, like identity, is sometimes useful or convenient, and sometimes extremely sensitive.