Xypoint Position Paper

Prepared for the

Joint Workshop in Mobile Web Privacy WAP Forum

& World Wide Web Consortium

 

 

Mario G. Tapia                     Will Cousins

mtapia@xypoint.com           wcousins@xypoint.com

Xypoint  

2200 Alaskan Way, 2nd Floor

Seattle WA. 98121

+ 1 206 674 1000

 

 

The needs of our company in the field of privacy protection

 

Xypoint's expertise is rooted in being the first in the nation to commercially deploy a Mobile Positioning Center (MPC) for network operators, thus helping carriers meet the FCC mandate for wireless E911. Today's platform includes a TIA/EIA-J-STD 036 compliant MPC while also functioning as a Mobile Location Server (MLS) used to support commercial location services. The Xypoint MLS combined with the company's presence manager and privacy manager, was designed to keep carriers firmly in control of applications used by their subscribers. It also protects subscribers' privacy.

 

General expectations on the final outputs of the workshop

 

Xypoint's general expectations on the final output of the workshop are:

 

1) The acknowledgment that the industry should adopt a privacy profile concept such as P3P [1] or an extension of P3P to cover mobile location.

 

 

2) The acknowledgment of a requirement for an international standard for exchanging customer privacy profiles such as P3P while a subscriber roams about various networks. This is required for the cases when the client cannot store its privacy profile locally and must store it on a network.

 

 

3) An overall better understanding of the global issues on privacy.

 


General perspectives on the privacy challenges raised by mobile Web services.

 

For location services to succeed the wireless industry should provide Fair Location Information Practices [2], so that customers are assured location information related to their use of any service will be protected by the company privacy policy.

 

* Disclosure of location practices should be known to the subscriber.

 

* Privacy practices should be independent of whether the location is on the network or on the handset.

 

* The location data should be secure but also allow for "Push" services, i.e. a subscriber requests marketing information or coupons when in the proximity of a preferred retail store.

 

* Privacy issues vary regionally by culture and in law [2][3].   In one area of the globe, privacy may have low importance, where as in another part of the globe, lax control over privacy would be unacceptable. 

 

References:

 

[1] Cranor, Lorrie; Langheinrich, M., Marchiori, M., Presler-Marshall, M., & Reagle, J., The Platform for Privacy Preferences 1.0 (P3P1.0) Specification W3C Working Draft 18 October 2000, http://www.w3.org/TR/P3P/

 

[2] Gidari, Albert, Location Privacy Fair Location Information Practices for Mobile Commerce, Location Decisions 2000 Application of Location Technology for the International Commercial Environment Chicago Illinois June 13-14, 2000.

 

[3] Proposal of the European Parliament and of the Council Concerning the Processing of personal Data and the Protection of Privacy in the Electronic Communications Sector, Commission of the European Communities Brussels, July 12, 2000.