Bell Labs 'Vortex' Adds Privacy to Cell Phone Tracking

Researchers at Lucent's Bell Labs have invented a system that empowers users of mobile devices to decide exactly when "presence aware" is too aware.

Lucent's Privacy-Conscious Personalization (PCP) framework relies on user specified preferences that are filtered through a rules engine before location information is shared. Bell Labs believes that its approach differs from other blanket solutions offered by its competitors, and is marketing customized palettes of pre-loaded context aware preferences customized for different classes of users.

Bell Labs has christened its rules engine -- which works by querying a device in database fashion -- "Houdini." According to the company, the device reports back only what users have chosen to share in near real time. Although Houdini is currently a prototype that was showed off at the 2004 IEEE International Conference on Mobile Data Management, the commercially available product will be known as "Vortex."

Vortex comprises the policy management portion of MiLife Intelligent Services Gateway (ISG), a product that allows Web-based applications to access telephone network data. In addition to playing hide and seek from prying eyes, devices with context aware settings work in tandem with the Houdini engine to weed out unwanted Short Message Service (SMS) advertisements and undesired coupon spamming from merchants. Through these settings, users can decide what business can contact them electronically, if at all.

One-to-one marketing solutions that allow retailers to leverage presence and context awareness are not a new development. Back in 2001, BetaNews previewed Nokia's mPlatform product, which promised customers the underlying potential for immediate reaction, purchase and contact with consumers.

Aside from fostering the scenario where a person walking by Starbucks is offered a coupon for a free espresso, such direct marketing solutions also raise the possibility for low-cost sponsored mobile devices to infiltrate the market.

Marketing is at the heart of Bell's ISG sales pitch to network operators. Customized devices with pre-populated context menus could be geared toward a variety of customers ranging from students to high powered sales persons. For example, a student may want friends to know where they are at any given moment, while a sales executive may want to sink into anonymity after 5:30.

The accuracy of location queries can also be altered to allay the fears of students who are skipping class, or exposing the meeting place of a power-lunch with an important client.

Despite changes to these settings, the United States government's e911 service would still be able to provide emergency workers with necessary life-saving information.

In a statement, Rick Hull, Bell Labs director of Network Data and Services Research said, "Bell Labs' technology would give end-users more explicit control over how their network data is interpreted and shared with different requestors of location information in near real-time."

Bell's designs met with the approval of Jason Catlett, President of Junkbusters privacy advocacy group, who remarked, "The Bell Labs PCP framework promises to give mobile users the benefits they want from sharing location information without having to buy into a wholesale surveillance mechanism. The fine-grained options, allowing the user to consent to disclosure of location according to place, time and person are important to avoid being monitored 24/7."