Location Data Privacy Guidelines Released

Key questions we pose in our book include “how is location data being shared?”, “Who has access to it?”, and “Who controls the data?”  A new resource helps organizations become aware of these issues and helps them set their own strategy on information sharing.  On pages 12 and 13 of the July-August 2013 edition of ApoGeo  is a description of this resource, Location Forum’s Privacy Council’s new report, Location Data Privacy: Guidelines, Assessment & Recommendations.  These guidelines represent the first industry-created set of best practices for improving how location data is gathered, used and managed, along with a ‘scorecard’ for quantitatively measuring a company’s privacy risk level.  Our book discusses privacy implications for spatial data, which are rapidly changing for many reasons:  First, an increasing number of applications, devices, and activities in our everyday lives are becoming geo-enabled.  Second, organizations are increasingly recognizing the value of this locational information.  Third, the ability of organizations to use, and misuse, that information is becoming easier and easier.

Location Data Privacy: Guidelines, Assessment & Recommendations.

Natasha Léger, President of The Location Forum and editor of LBx Journal, explains  “These guidelines enable users and companies to understand the value of the information so that they can both take the appropriate measures to safeguard what type of data is disclosed, and determine how it is used and shared.” While location data are now seen as vital for businesses to maintain a competitive edge, the “problem with location data today is that it changes as it weaves through various hands—applications, vendors, developers, government, companies, data providers, and individual users.”  The article points out that another complication is the “diversity of legal protections across countries and states that make developing a consistent privacy policy a moving target. All this is set against a business atmosphere of continuous pressure to develop innovative location-based products and services.”

The Location Data Privacy Guidelines “bring attention to issues that many organizations and companies have chosen to ignore, due to lack of legal certainty around requirements, and provide a framework of location data practices for developers, managers, marketers, and executives.”   You can download the guidelines here.  The guidelines are not free but are the results of 8 months of interviews and extensive research, and they might be well worth the investment.