ABSTRACT
This paper reports on a set of empirical studies that reveal how people think about location data, how these conceptions relate to expectations of privacy, and, consequently, what this might mean for law, regulation, and technology design. Despite the great debates, published commentary, court action, regulatory activity, and scholarly literature, not enough is known about how people understand location data, and what specifically about location affects people’s judgments about others’ access to their whereabouts. Further, despite efforts to stem location tracking, it remains rampant. Perhaps for the very reasons that people find it abhorrent, the trackers eagerly clutch this revealing window in our lives. Stern rules aimed at curtailing location tracking are a poor match for the ingenuity of seekers of this information who, among other tactics, exploit enormous ambiguity in how location is interpreted and operationalized, to make end runs around these rules. …
Martin, Kirsten EM and Nissenbaum, Helen F, What Is It About Location? (March 26, 2019).
First posted 2019-05-08 06:21:10
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