Middleware for location privacy: an overview

As context-aware mobile applications become increasingly common, privacy issues hit headlines again. Users are faced with a trade-off. On one hand, releasing information about their location allows them to take advantage of new location-based services. On the other hand, releasing such information raises privacy issues about the potential inadequate or even malicious use of location information. Location-based tourist information is a typical service that needs to overcome this tension in order to succeed. Thus, programming such services is challenging in two aspects. First, there is the inherent burden of programming distributed context-aware software. Second, there is the challenge of programming such software in a way that guarantees user privacy. Providing adequate middleware can alleviate the programming burden. In this paper, we provide an analysis of various existing privacy-enabling middleware that can be used to provide programming support for it.

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