Study: Geolocation apps draw users, despite privacy concerns

03.04.2012
Nearly 60 percent of smartphone users employ apps that access their location data despite having concerns about risks to their privacy and even personal safety, according to a survey conducted by ISACA, a nonprofit group that focuses on risk and security management.

Respondents to the survey, which polled 1,000 smartphone owners by phone last month, indicated that their chief concerns were advertisers' access to their information and potential risks to their personal safety.

Concerns about personal safety were piqued this week after sharp criticism of an app called Girls Around Me that became known as a "stalker" app.

Researchers don't know why consumers continue to use products that make them uncomfortable, said Ryan Calo, a Stanford University privacy researcher. But they see the behavior often enough to have a name for it: the privacy paradox.

Location-based applications are booming, but location data is particularly sensitive because it can easily be identified with a particular user.

"If you think about it, most of us have one location where we spend our daytime hours at work and one location where we spend our nighttime at home, so after just a day or two of these data points, it's fairly obvious who they describe," said Aaron Brauer-Rieke, a fellow at the Center for Democracy and Technology.