A review of mobile location privacy in the Internet of Things

The goal of Internet of Things (IoT) research is to extend computing and connectivity to anything, anyone, anywhere and anytime. While there are apparent benefits in using IoT systems, the convergence of technologies has begun to challenge the privacy of users. Powered by location based services, these systems have the potential to enable a systematic mass surveillance and to impinge on the personal privacy of users, especially their location privacy. This paper overviews some of the existing location privacy issues found on mobile devices. Particular attention is paid to the current access permission mechanism used on the Android, iPhone and Windows Mobile platforms. It is anticipated that the current privacy issues in mobile platforms are more likely to be inherited if not magnified in the IoT.