GeoNext : Location Matters

Image source: GeoNext

Wednesday the 26th of February saw 2014's installation of the annual Geonext Conference held at the Australian Technology Park in Sydney, with this year's theme, "Location Matters", emphasising the increasing awareness of the importance of place. To quote GeoNext,

The concept of “place” permeates everything. Whether you are in technology or business; knowing where things happen, where you, your customers or your assets are, is of critical importance.

It was also mentioned that geography was cool and the presenters certainly showed what was cool about geography and geographer's themselves.

Reflecting the pervasiveness of place, the conference speakers came from diverse industries and represented a range of views on the possibilities of geolocation technologies and their applications. While the diversity of speakers perspectives was evident, there was a notable lack of gender diversity in the presenters and hackers. In fact there was no gender diversity with not one female presenting a paper. Noting the presence of females in the audience however, it would be nice to see this rectified in next year's conference, because location and technology certainly matters to women as much as it does to men. Despite this, the day saw a range of papers on geolocation including presentations which addressed its practical application, its future possibilities, and those which occasionally delved deeper into the moral complexities and issues of privacy which accompany such technologies and the "power of location".

First up, was Nic Lowe of popular car share company, GoGet, discussing the building of a fine-grain transport network from scratch. This included Lowe's and his business partner's efforts in mapping customers to cars and demand to supply, and the implementation and refinement of a suite of tools and systems to manage their current network of more than 1250 vehicles in close to 1000 locations. For Lowe, it was important to prioritise people, noting that with technology, it is easy to focus on the asset rather than the people who use it. This refining of what Lowe refers to as the human-machine mix is plausibly responsible for GoGet's growth and success. The increased popularity of such share services could be a reflection of what Lowe sees as the future of transport which he believes will be individualised, customised car share transport designed for people.

Next up we have The Politics of Location's own Kurt Iveson and his paper "On the bus in the network city: the politics of real-time public transport". Kurt discussed Sydney's introduction of real-time transport apps for its buses and trains. While there is much enthusiasm surrounding the introduction of smart transport technologies, Iveson looked at the politics accompanying its implementation and its impacts on accessibility, asking despite all the hype, whether smart transport in Sydney is necessarily a good thing. As you may have guessed, answering this question is complex. The genealogy of the apps was outlined, including successful apps created well before the current range of Transport NSW sanctioned apps yet which were taken down due to issues of access to data. Transport legacy systems, ownership of data and access to data feature prominently here. In fact Iveson suggests that the openness of data is a key political battleground with the Government controlling who has access. Access to raw data is not the only access issue with smart transport. As Iveson notes, there is an accessibility issue with the apps themselves.  Realtime transport apps are only available to people with smart phones, which excludes those who don't or can't use them. The installation of GPS on transport was also touched upon in relation to the increased surveillance on workers that such technology enabled and an associated pressure on worker's performance. As such it was suggested that smart transport prioritises some actors while marginalizing others.

Returning to the theme of the sharing economy evident in the GoGet presentation, James Moody of TuShare discussed the importance of share schemes in an increasingly resource scarce world. Focusing on the "hidden inefficiencies and idle assets" Moody outlined how both individuals and companies are beginning to take advantage of such hidden value through collaborative consumption. The increasing popularity of the sharing economy was demonstrated by a rise in sharing services over the past two years.

Attending to the actual development of geolocation technology, Professor Chris Rizos, discussed the problems with GNSS systems and the need for accurate and highly available indoor positioning systems. Specifically, Rizos discusses the development of Locata, a ground-based GNSS-like navigation system which can transmit ranging signals at several frequencies in the 2.4GHz Industrial, Scientific and Medical (ISM) radio bands. The technology has successfully been used in open cut mines and airborne tests to augment GNSS and with the development of a beam-forming antenna technology which delivers multipath-mitigated measurements for both positioning and orientation, Locata has developed into a useful tool for highly accurate and reliable indoor navigation. Rizos cautions however, that the success of Locata, and similar research is often constrained by limited funding and the short term thinking that pervades government approaches to funding innovation. If progress in such areas is to be made, this attitude must be addressed, to avoid technologies being thwarted and not realising their full potential.

Next up was a panel discussion centering on wearable technologies. The panel was comprised of Peter Koch of Explore Engage, Eliot Duff of CISRO, and Rob Manson of buildAR.com. Unsurprisingly this included a discussion of Google Glass. Asked whether they thought Glass and similar products would be successful, it was suggested that like most new technologies, their initial adoption would be niche before growing a broader market appeal. Popular initial industries for use included the construction, engineering and mining industries, where augmented reality could play a big role in planning, construction, maintenance and repair. This lead to a broader discussion on the Internet of Things and its possibilities and constraints, the obvious constraining factor being reliable broadband networks. Importantly the panel seemed to see the future of wearable technology and augmented reality, not as technology, machine, or robotics dominant, but as a mix between machine and human relations. Speakers talked of the need to have an awareness of automated objects' intentions, and also the ability to communicate with them. It was thought that wearable technology should be an intention based service in that the intent of the user directs the service - in one panel members words, "I want a service based on where I'm looking at".

Location intelligence and its relevance to marketing is discussed by Kolt Luty of Pitney Bowes Software, in his paper "New Location Perspectives in Retail - in the Zone". Location intelligence has become mainstream and Luty describes its usefulness for retailers in targeting the right locations, and target audiences for their product. Particularly interesting were the possibilities of geofencing. Geofencing creates a virtual boundary on a real-world geographic area. This means that targeted offers tailored to a customers likes and essentials based on their spending habits can be sent to customers who opt in to such services. As these customers enter the geofenced area they can receive the offer via sms, ad or coupon, enticing them to enter the store and spend. Geofencing marketing can both aim to retain their normal spending but also increase cross departmental spending by alerting the customer to offers in other departments while they're in store. The big value for such marketing and retail techniques resides in knowing the individual's consumption data.

Hamish Robertson demonstrated how spatial science can support community-based ageing by linking and visualising varied components of the spectrum of organisations and services that engage with older people. Roberston developed a 'virtual earth' model of population ageing, dementia projections and health and social support infrastructure. He noted that despite the value of such models, spatial science is under-utilised in designing and implementing better aged care and health strategies, particularly when you consider that although the majority of older people don't want to move, the typical response to ageing is to relocate the individual. Keeping this in mind, Robertson built his model to link population data, epidemiological data and health and social support information to create a virtual environment for inquiring on the current and future implications of population ageing.

Billy Haworth presented on the use of social media and information communication during disaster events. Using two recent events, the 2010/2011 Queensland floods, and the 2013 Tasmania bushfires, Haworth discussed how individuals have utilised a range of social media and location technologies to share images of disaster impacts, coordinate relief efforts, send alerts for help, and express support for those effected by the disasters. Billy gets extra points for managing to include a reference to One Direction in his paper but questioned whether Harry Styles really could help or would care about the fires, despite one tweeters hope he would. You can find more information about Billy's research on Volunteered Geographic Information in the context of bushfire preparation in Tasmania at the "Exploring places and people" blog.

Rohan Fernando of HERE brought our attention to the "Race for the Geospatial Overworld" and the billions of dollars invested into building a spatially precise virtual representation of our real world in complete 3D and which can be updated in real-time. More commonly known as Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI), the geospatial overworld, produces advanced interactive digital maps and map-related functionality as a holistic service. Fernando discusses the uses of SDIs and their potential to change our lives. According to Fernando, SDI's include updated data collected by global teams of professional geographic analysts as well as anonymous data collected automatically from many dynamically interactive systems around the world, including each of us. Important to this type of analysis, are the larger group patterns that are shown through big data, rather than the emphasis on the patterns of the individual which are important to the marketing analytics discussed by Luty.

The final paper presentation of the day was delivered by Simon Hope of Geoplex, on "The Geekification of GIS". There was less about geeks but a lot about GIS which seemed appropriate for a GeoNext conference. Hope talked about how the rate of change in technology is having an impact on the GIS space and forcing a rethink of approaches to GIS delivery. Techniques and software innovations from the wider technology space are seen as filtering into GIS territory and having an impact in the spatial world. Cloud solutions were discussed as being more nimble and agile approaches than traditional monolithic spatial data infrastructures and Hope discussed software delivery techniques they've used to allow organisations to scale and manage large spatial applications. Software applications were considered as significantly influencing the spatial world.

The Hackfest presentations concluded the presentation part of the day. App developers were given a chance to design an app for GoGet with a multitude of prizes in the offering. Winners were chosen by GoGet and Here based on their favourite entries. The apps and the winners can be found here. The winning app was Treffyn Koreshoff who cleverly worked on blurring the line between machine and person, creating a personality for the GoGet vehicles which could be viewed on the app and included their favourite journeys, and emphasised the relationship between GoGet users and the vehicles.

Georabble drinks were held at the end of the day. The conference had provided an insight into the multiple directions geolocational technology is heading in, the variety of potential applications, and the social and ethical implications of such technology. There was much enthusiasm for the benefits that these technologies can bring however perhaps more emphasis needs to be put on an awareness of the politics behind the technologies. Issues of access, privacy and surveillance need to be taken seriously rather than just given lip service or suggesting that it is the culture that needs to change to be more accepting of lesser degrees of privacy brought by the use of such technologies.

Image source: GeoNext

In Google We Trust

Technologically connected but where does our data go? Image source: ABC Four Corners

The ABC current affairs program, Four Corners, recently broadcast an episode that looked at life in the digital age, In Google We Trust. The episode followed the a day in the life of your "average" Australian family, looking at how the everyday technologies they use, create a profile of their movements interests, likes, communications and the extent of the data networks that this information travels through. The program also discusses the opportunities for surveillance, tracking and the general erosion of privacy that these technologies enable, often without much public awareness of these intrusions. Many of these are known to us and our readers here at The Politics of Location, some which will be reiterated in today's post, along with a few examples which are new to us.

The first member of the family to be the focus of the camera's attention is their teenage daughter, Christina. She likes to visit sites such as YouTube, tumblr and instagram to keep up to date with what people and celebrities are doing. She also likes Selena Gomez. Of course, the use of these sites raises the question of privacy agreements required for using such services and whether or not the majority of people read them, and if they do, whether they actually understand them. The answer is a resounding "No". No surprises there. According to Alistair MacGibbon, from the Center for Internet Safety, and former federal police officer:

Even if there are 156 pages of terms and conditions very conveniently though that checkbox is on page one, and I suspect that the majority of Australians have never read a privacy policy and if they had, they probably couldn't understand it.

Furthermore, he notes that people should not be lapsed into a false sense of security based on the familiarity of the environment from which they're accessing the net:

If we think that we're in our lounge room or bedroom engaging in the internet, that it's just us - there're an awful lot of people looking over your shoulder.

This means, that even before Christina starts her school day, her online activity and the data that generates is already travelling internationally and being tracked, providing advertisers with information to directly target marketing to her.  This doesn't really bother Christina because she believes she there is no sensitive information that can be gathered from her internet use and she isn't using her accounts to do anything secret, although one might be doubtful if liking Selena Gomez is something you want shared. But that doesn't particularly seem to bother a twelve year old. The basic message here though is that privacy agreements are often unclear and convoluted, deterring users from perusing and comprehending them fully. Thus people sign up without being fully aware what data is being collected and how it will be used. The data creates a digital profile of the user and companies frequently use this data for targeted advertising. They know a lot about you.

Next up is teenage son Alexi, who is the highest app user in the family. On the topic of apps, Troy Hunt, Internet Security Officer, is quick to point out that apps essentially do what your internet browser does, and again makes your online activity trackable and able to be intercepted. Alexi's apps are scrutinised by Hunt and he finds that some of the apps that users would consider as trustworthy actually have some major security problems, the example here being the app of the NRL team, the Sydney Roosters. Their protocol wasn't encrypted which meant that personal information and credit card data entered into the site would be available to anybody observing the connection. The Sydney Roosters have since fixed this problem.

The problem with apps, according to Hunt, is that they often operate on user trust:

So that's a real problem with this app and it's unfortunate when you're sitting at a PC and you're doing your banking or you're doing your shopping, you get a little padlock icon and you can sort of look for that, and you get some sort of confidence in the security of the website. But you don't get that in an app, so all you know with an app is that these guys are saying, hey trust me with your credit card details - so that one basically has not even an attempt at securing your credentials.

Reporter, Geoff Thompson, next turns his attention to the father, Jim, a financial planner who travels to work by motorbike. Etags are mentioned in passing as a trade off between convenient automatic billing and the road authorities knowing when he uses the tolls. What is news to Jim, and also to us here at this blog, is that NSW Roads and Maritime Services is downloading information on his mobile phone by scanning its Bluetooth signal as he passes particular streetlights. This obviously raises concerns about what data is being stored and whether it is de-identified, as Hunt notes:

It's a question of what they're actually capturing and saving, I mean the concern that I would have is are they tracking identifiable information about individuals, because if they're tracking identifiable information and they're doing it at multiple points, then they're tracking everything from your personal movements, to the average speed that you could be carrying, that would be a bit of a concern to me, it's a question though of whether it's de-identified or not.

The Roads and Maritime Services (RMS) is collecting the Media Access Control (MAC) addresses of mobile phones at 16 sets of traffic lights in inner Sydney. MAC addresses are unique identifiers of mobile phones and similar devices (we talked about their use in so-called 'Spy Bins' in London here). They are not considered as personal information by Australian privacy laws because the phone's owner is not easily identified by the address. This however doesn't mean its not invading privacy or doesn't have the potential to. As Hunt cautions,

this might be one of those cases where you want to get a definition of personal information, is a unique device address personal information? You know, maybe it is not, but it does still track an individual's movements, ah so whether or not they admit to actually tracking it, the capability is there.

The RMS issued a statement in response to the Four Corner's inquiries claiming that,

The devices receive the Bluetooth MAC address but no other identifying information is captured. MAC addresses are anonymous data.

The signals provide RMS with data to show the number of vehicles passing through intersections at particular times which then helps RMS monitor traffic flows. Unlike other devices with measure traffic volumes, this method allows RMS to measure traffic flow and provide information on trip and exit times to customers.

Despite this Four Corners uses examples of technologies which ended up having impacts beyond what was initially intended.San Francisco's toll tag, is one such example, for despite being introduced only with the intention for automatic billing, it eventually had impact on divorce proceedings. The movements of spouses became important information, and the courts acted to subpoena such information from the tags.

The fact that Jim drives to work also brings up the issue of Automatic Number Plate Recognition (APNR) technology which takes photographs of number plates and identifies any "problem" vehicles. Introduced in late 2009, the technology is now installed on 280 police cars across NSW. The cameras take six photos a second and these photos are stored on a data base for approximately five years. But the scanners don't discriminate on which vehicles they photograph. All number plates in view are targeted whether they are doing something illegal or not. According to Four Corners, since 2009 the NSW police force has captured and stored more than 208,799,000 number plates. However, the police are reluctant to explain how exactly they use this data, noting that there are strict protocols for accessing and retrieving the stored information and that none of it is personal, while offering a general statement that:

"The information collected by the ANPR units - car photo, registration plate number ... and where and when the photo was taken - is stored in a separate data base for about five years."

However, as the episode notes, this is essentially a database of where you've been and when for the past for years. Hunt believes we have reason to question the innocuousness of the technology:

Without any confirmation to the contrary, and I can understand why they'd want to be cagey about something like this, that's really the only conclusion you can draw right? Because we know that the data's being collected, we know we have the technology to match a numberplate in one location to a numberplate in another location, I mean this is, this is very basic stuff. So you have to draw the conclusion that that yes they, you know, this is all getting put together at some point.

This clearly shows the potential for metadata to be stored and used to link people and events over a period of years. This potential is voiced by the Australian Privacy Commissioner, Timothy Pilgrim, who notes that:

Metadata can tell quite a lot about a person's activity in terms of the times they're transmitting and who they're transmitting data to or having communications with, certainly it can provide quite a lot of information.

And there are more than 300 000 metadata requests made each year.

However, it is not just internet data, apps, number plates, etags, and mobile phones that are surrendering our data. Thompson, now turns to the mother of the family, Helen, who is heading out to do the grocery shopping. This of course brings up Coles "Flybuys" and Woolworths "Everyday Rewards".

Rob Scott, Finance Director for Coles, claims that the FlyBuys system is an extension of what retailers have been doing for years, in getting to know the customer, what products they need and like, and then tailoriing their services and stock to the customer. As Alastair MacGibbon notes, "loyalty cards and rewards programs are about collecting information about you. Again, it's a perfectly legitimate thing to do, so long as you go into it with your eyes wide open."

It is noted that Woolworth's has bought a 50% share in data analysis company, Quantium, giving Woolworth's access not only to the data of its own clients, but many of Quantium's other clients. This provides Woolworth's with a greater understanding of the buying habits of its own and other customers. Although the data that both companies share supposedly is de-identified, such data is still incredibly valuable in showing customer habits more broadly, which helps businesses to further tailor their products and services to the customer's wants.

Back at home, Helen opens up her yahoo account. Doing so means that her data is re-routed through computer servers in the United States and which of course, as the whistle blowing revelations on the National Security Agency earlier this year showed, makes Helen's data subject to interception by foreign intelligence agencies, something she is not comfortable with. While some "If you haven't done anything wrong, you don't have to worry" rhetoric is rolled out, Danny O'Brien of the Electronic Frontier Foundation notes that,

US citizens have, at least in theory, some constitutional rights that protect their data from access by the US government. Those rights don't extend to non-US persons, which means that Australian's data, when it's kept in the United States, has no real legal protection from the government...It gets worse because, not only is there no good legal protections from the US government, 'cause the US government shares its intelligence and research with the rest of the world, including potentially the Australian government. So you have this incredible trade off where the Australian legal system has good protections to prevent data just ending up in the hands of the Australian law enforcement, without you know a good warrant or a judicial process. But that doesn't stop the US from handing data on Australian citizens straight over to those same parties without any of those legal safeguards.

With the potential surveillance and data gathering opportunities in the domestic sphere discussed, the episode moves onto the final member of the Pappas family yet to be addressed, eldest daughter, Katerina. Meeting a friend at Westfield, Bondi Junction, Katerina's movements are monitored by CCTV but also have the potential to be tracked by the shopping center using her mobile phone. Four Corners notes that Westfield's privacy policy claims that,

"...where devices are able to connect to, or are identifiable by, in-centre infrastructure, we may collect data including usage, location and type of device"

Although Westfield states that they are currently not tracking customers via mobile phones despite having the technology installed in three Australian sites. The importance placed on such technologies is demonstrated by the creation of Westfield Labs, a division of Westfield based in San Francisco, which is tasked with developing and perfecting ways to collect data on customers. Another company, RetailNext, has already developed their own version of in-store tracking, something we discussed in a previous blog post. Katerina, understandably is not comfortable with the idea of tracking her movements through the shopping center by wi-fi, suggesting for an opt in, opt out policy.

The Future of Retail. Image Source: Westfield Labs

But it is not quite safe to leave Westfield without another privacy hazard! According to Four Corners, Westfield parking station trialed technology to help shopper locate their cars. This required photographing and uploading the images of every parked car. Hunt, however, had found a security flaw which has now been addressed. It had been possible to obtain more information than the four possible car matches that the product had intended. According to Hunt, anybody with an internet connection could access information on which cars were in the shopping center and when:

And they would get a list of every vehicle that was currently in the car park and then they could repeat it every sixty seconds, every five minutes, whenever they wanted to, so you would get a profile of who's coming and going and how long they're staying.

The episode concludes back at the Pappas' s house, where the complexity of digital assets ownership, particularly after death and the idea of people's data outliving them, is discussed. The relative "newness" of this issue is noted, along with the need to find ways to deal with this, answers to which are far from complete.

That distinguishing between our physical and digital identity is becoming increasingly difficult is remarked upon by Thompson, and the episode has reflected the increasing intertwining of the two through our everyday lives, often through processes of which we are not aware, or only partly so. Our data footprints reveal a considerable amount of detail about ourselves, even if the data is de-identified or not, and it is increasingly salient to develop ways to manage this data in a way that finds a balance with privacy, regardless of whether some commentators have already touted the death of privacy.

It suggests the increasing blurring of the boundaries between public and private places and selves. Many see their mobile phone as a personal and private device, but clearly as this report has showed, the information contained on them can be obtained in public spaces, such as with the MAC address gathering, and without clear explanation of why, or what is used for. This also denotes a disparity between people's perceptions of what is private and what law or government define as personal information, based on ideas of de-identified information, which need to be re-assessed. Because the collection, storing and access to big data raises a multitude of issues concerning privacy, security, policing, government and power, as well as the potential to abuse that power. As O'Brien comments,

I don't think any social system, any government, can survive knowing everything about its citizens without ultimately that being corrupted. I mean I wouldn't be able to take that power. I don't think anyone would want or to take that power, um. But once you've got it, you're gonna find a use for it.

Exploring Sydney's Digital-Urban Interface

Accessing the digital layers ... networked urbanism is ruining our posture!

Recently, Sophia and I took a group of 25 urban geography students on a field trip in the Central Business District of Sydney, designed to examine various ways in which the digital and the urban are coming together.

We based the field trip on the 'Systems/Layers Walkshop' concept designed by Nurri Kim and Adam Greenfield for Do Projects. Nurri and Adam have produced a fantastic booklet that can be used to help prepare for such an exercise, based on their experiences of running these 'walkshops' in a number of cities.

The purpose of the walkshop is to develop a better understanding of networked urbanism and its implications. To quote from their booklet:

We live in an age in which the form of cities, the ways in which we experience them, and the choices they present us with are all in the process of profound and rapid change, driven by the presence of networked information-processing systems everywhere around us. Mobile phones, CCTV cameras, building-scale displays, embedded sensors, and remotely-operated barriers are all part of this transformation. Between them, these systems superimpose a layer of information on top of the physical bricks and paths of the city, and this is increasingly a place where control over space and behavior can be exerted.

We believe that understanding this layer, the systems that make it up, and its implications for the freedom to move and act is vital to full citizenship in the congested, contested urban spaces of the twenty-first century.

And so, the walkshop is a tool to develop this understanding of layers and systems, and to generate discussion about their implications. This is what you do:

What you’re going to be looking for are appearances of the networked digital in the physical, and vice versa: apertures through which the things that happen in the real world are gathered up by the global informational network, and contexts in which information originating on the network affects what people see, confront and are able to do.

Places where information is being collected.

Places where information is being displayed.

Places where networked information is being acted upon.

I also asked the participants to read Dan Hill's wonderful essay on 'The Street as Platform' in preparation for the day.

We focused our attention on a couple of relatively small areas in the Central Business District. For those who know Sydney, here's how we rolled...

We started at Central Station, where we had a talk from two people from the City of Sydney about their Food Truck program and mobile app.

We then caught a train from Central Station to Circular Quay, for a walk around followed by a talk from the folks at Skedgo, who are responsible for the real-time public transport app TripGo.

After a break for lunch, we then caught a train back to Town Hall Station, and broke up into small groups to explore the terrain between Town Hall and St James Station on foot. We reconvened as a large group to report back on our small group observations and reflect on the day.

Here's a quick report on what we saw and what we learnt, and some reflections on the experience.