Spontaneous Privacy Policy Negotiations in Pervasive Environments

Privacy issues are a major burden for the acceptance of pervasive applications. They may ultimately result in the rejection of new services despite their functional benefits. Especially excessive data collection scares the potential user away. Privacy Negotiations restore respect for the user’s privacy preferences because the kind and amount of personal data to be disclosed is settled individually. This paper outlines the advantages of negotiable privacy policies for both the user and the service provider. Special requirements for the implementation of privacy policy negotiations in pervasive environments are discussed, notably ease-ofuse. Having sketched how individualized privacy policies can be realized within the privacy policy language P3P, two case-studies illustrate how the negotiation can be integrated seamlessly in existing usage patterns to enhance privacy: first, for mobile interactions in urban spaces, and second, for social network sites.