Hiding on the road — Anonymous usage of Location Based Services

The rapid increase in the usage of Location Based Services (LBS) due to the rise of the smartphone is focusing attention on how applications are accessing users\´ context location. Smartphone operating systems such as iOS and Android currently promote a "one size fits all" approach and do not dis- criminate between services on the accuracy and extent of location disclosure. A general lack of awareness pervades amongst users of these devices as to the consequences of indiscriminate location disclosure although the various issues have been discussed and published for many years. This paper outlines a new approach to obfuscate a user\´s location using relevant road categories and their vector data and explores how the current deficiencies in current smartphone operating systems could be improved to allow such obfuscation of user location and provide improved user control over all classes of LBS applications.