Location privacy in a digital ecosystem for context-aware applications

Location-based services feature prominently in many digital ecosystem designs. In this paper we present the design of a mobility digital ecosystem for public transportation and campus area networks. We describe four context-aware applications that encourage users to disclose their location: a public transport passenger tracking application; a route-based car-pooling application; an on-campus location-based social networking 'assistant' and a virtual art-gallery tour guide. The location-based service applications offered are intended to drive users into the digital ecosystem and in so doing they share data about their location. This location data can be used to provide value-added services to the users and optimise overall system behaviour. In this paper, we present the architectures of these four applications and address issues concerning privacy, location-identity and uniform standards developed by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). Our applications provide environments that encourage individual interaction and engagement that are self-regulating and self-evolving: these are the key characteristics of a digital ecosystem.