This document discusses using smartphones to discover personal context through onboard sensors and how this raises privacy concerns. It describes how sensors like Bluetooth, WiFi, GPS, and accelerometers can be used to determine identity, location, activity, proximity, and interaction. While this data could enable useful applications, it risks privacy if accessed by malicious parties. The document advocates for balancing privacy and utility by quantifying data sensitivity, certifying apps based on their utility versus data resolution, and clearly informing users.

1. Experience certainty.
Copyright © 2011 Tata Consultancy Services Limited
Personal Context Discovery using Smartphones
- Does the Utility justify the breach of privacy
Arpan Pal
Head of Research
Innovation Lab, Kolkata

2. 2
Discovering Human Context
.
 Who are you? - Identity
 Where are you? - Location
 What are you doing? - Activity
 Whom are you interacting with? - Proximity
 What is the level of interaction? - Interaction
 What are you thinking? – Thought-waves

3. 3
Mobile Phone Based Sensing
 Proximity / presence
– Using Bluetooth for finding nearby mobiles
– Using Wi-Fi to discover other mobiles nearby
 Location
– Using ultrasound beacon
– Using GPS (outdoors)
– Using Accelerometer / compass /
gyroscope
 Activity
– Using Accelerometer
 Interaction Level
– Using Microphone Audio
 Identity
– From Network ID
 Thought-waves
– From Bluetooth connected EEG
On-board sensors
Accelerometer, GPS,
Compass
Camera, Microphone
Network
Bluetooth, WiFi, 2G/GPRS, 3G

4. 4
Experience certainty.
The Good
• Localization and activity detection for Wellness / Fitness
• Indoor localization for Smart Stores
• 2D to 3D dynamic reconstruction for remote
advisory / remote diagnosis systems
• Employee network and activity discovery for
Organizational behavioural analysis
• Personalized learning using cognitive load from EEG
• Software Usability testing using EEG
• Stress / Fatigue Monitoring at Workplace / Driving using EEG / ECG
Nice value-adding apps, but what if the data falls into wrong hands?

5. 5
The Bad
Even Sleeping Smartphones Could Soon Hear Spoken Commands
Nuance is working with chipmakers on technology that would enable “persistent
listening” apps.
http://www.technologyreview.com/news/429316/even-sleeping-smartphones-could-soon-hear-spoken-commands/
MIT Technology Review, Sept. 2012
• Kind of Creepy because we assume that the phone is sleeping!!
• But it would be good to have a phone that wakes up to voice!!
 Good Utility as long as it does not record all ambient audio.
• Who guarantees that??

6. 6
The Ugly
Smartphone Malware Designed to Steal Your Life
The US Naval Surface Warfare Center has created an Android app that secretly
records your environment and reconstructs it as a 3D virtual model for a malicious
user to browse
http://www.technologyreview.com/view/429394/placeraider-the-military-smartphone-malware-designed-to-steal-your-life/
MIT Technology Review, Sept. 2012
Downright Outrageous – violation of privacy
Same holds true for all malware – unconsented use of data

7. 7
Experience certainty.
Privacy Vs. Utility
• Privacy agreements are ok for legalities sake – but does the average user
understand it?
https://www.privacyrights.org/fs/fs2b-cellprivacy.htm
• Malware protection - Secure systems should guarantee data not falling into
wrong hands
• Main issue – Is the data I am giving out is worth the Utility I am getting?
Privacy
Utility
• Quantify the sensitivity of data shared in an Information-theoretic Manner
• Certify apps based on its utility vs. resolution of the data it’s gathering
• Inform the user about both in an easily understandable manner
Spatial Resolution of location data
Temporal Resolution of Meter Data

8. Thank You
arpan.pal@tcs.com