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G. Retscher, F. Obex:
"An Appeal to Discuss Ethical Issues in Context with Cooperative User Localization";
Talk: IGNSS 2015 Conference, Surfers Paradise, Gold Coast, Australien (invited); 2015-07-14 - 2015-07-16; in: "IGNSS 2015 Conference", (2015), Paper ID 4, 13 pages.

Rapid technical developments in GNSS and other ubiquitous positioning methods led to new applications and technical possibilities. Technical researchers and developers mostly imply that it is mainly about further enhancing localization technologies and algorithms including the development of new advanced Apps for Location-based Services (LBS). They are aiming to deliver personal navigation with a higher availability, integrity and reliability in any environment. Hence, localization technologies have become very powerful tools when tracking an individual or a group of users. As meanwhile LBS influences every individualīs life there is a need that ethical and political issues have to be addressed within our research community. Although there is a lot of research going on in developing algorithms to keep ones data and LBS search request in private, researchers can no longer keep their credibility without cooperating with ethical experts or an ethical committee. From our point of view, we should include the issue of the userīs privacy and ethical implications in mind from the very beginning of our research process. At the Department of Geodesy and Geoinformation of the Vienna University of Technology, Austria, cooperation with social scientists in this respect started recently. A study for the acceptance and user needs in a new project proposal dealing with cooperative positioning was initiated. In this project a mobile LBS user is guided with an App and located with assistance of the whole user group. Then users can help each other to find their way through complex environments such as multimodal public transport interchanges, airports, shopping malls, etc. Users of such services should get the right to withdraw their consent for transferring location based and other personal data at any time. They also should get clear and comprehensive information when and for what they give away their personal data and location and its further use.

Cooperative Positioning, LBS, Privacy, Ethical Thinking

http://publik.tuwien.ac.at/files/PubDat_241971.pdf