The Smartphone Honey Trap

Your smartphone is spying on you.

Today, according to the Wall Street Journal, 56 of 101 popular iPhone apps transmitted the phone's unique device ID to other companies without users' awareness or consent. Forty-seven apps transmitted the phone's location in some way.

And this is just the beginning.

The serious privacy issues that are emerging from the combination of mobile phones, Internet and location based services have been predictable since way back. Wise policies and incentives at the time could have meant less problems today.

I did an op-ed about it twelve years ago. It was considered very far out by policy people at the time, it just did not register. I spoke with a few friends who were into politics, they shook their heads and laughed - this was science fiction for politicians, and politicians did not make decisions based on science fiction.

But the scenario in the op-ed is on track, it is still valid today. Only now the scenario does not seem wild at all. Reality is proving to be even wilder.

Now I am publishing the op-ed again, because the issue now is on the tables of the policy makers. The op-ed was OK, just ten years too early.

I am also publishing it to make the point that developments will continue to exceed our wildest fantasies. Whatever you can think of today, it will be surpassed by reality within a few years. For example, our bodies are going online. We are carrying health monitoring and life supporting, perhaps soon life-enhancing, gadgets in our bodies.

Stuxnet 2.0, anyone?

There are serious public policy challenges ahead.

Datateknik Op-Ed: Guard the privacy of your location,
Column in Datateknik 98-14, published 17 Sep 1998. (Original In Swedish)

Guard the privacy of your location, or the future may look like this: I get a great offer from an ISP--Internet Service Provider--for