[wearables] Wearable Computers and Body Privacy take 2

[Thad E. Starner]

Thanks to everyone for their comments so far.

Here is a second version of the article that sounds a little less,
uh, paranoid.  As usual, I'm trying to fit too much in too little
space, but this verison is a little cleaner.  See what y'all think.

			   Thad
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Wearable Computers and Body Privacy

About 10 years ago, I made a bet with a colleague that the first large
wearable computing market would evolve from portable consumer
electronics like MP3 players instead of growing out of the mobile
phone market.  Apparently I am in the process of losing that bet.

Today's mobile phones are integrating wireless messaging, video and
audio recording, web browsing, e-mail, and many computing
applications.  Previously, these features could only be found on
prototype wearable computers.  With the addition of a high resolution
screen, such as MicroOptical's SV-6 head-up display, and a fast mobile
text entry method, such as Handykey's Twiddler one-handed keyboard,
these mobile phones will be very similar to our current research
prototypes, at least in hardware specifications.  With such additions,
much of Vernor Vinge's vision with respect to wearable computers in
his story ``Synthetic Serendipity'' will be possible for a large
consumer base.  In fact, many of wearable computing's early
demonstrations should be possible with this current generation of
mobile phones with embedded cameras: augmented realities where
computer graphics are overlaid on the physical world; sharing points
of view in real-time; ad hoc collaborations with remote colleagues;
and access to web search engines to provide assistance during a
conversation, for example.  However, I'd like to discuss a major
feature and challenge to these devices:  privacy.

Wearable computing may provide some privacy-protections for the field
of ubiquitous computing.  Many instantiations of ubiquitous computing
place cameras, microphones, and other sensors in the environment
around us.  Yet, who receives this information or provides controls
against logging it?  Who provides the money for installing and
maintaining the infrastructure and ensures that the infrastructure is
not perverted for improper use?

By concentrating sensing and data storage on the body, a wearable
computer allows its user to ``control his own bits.''  The user
determines when and where his data is released and how much to trust
the infrastructure around him.  For example, when a wearable user
enters work in the morning, he may instruct his wearable to inform his
office of his arrival so that his office unlocks his door or starts a
pot of coffee.  However, the user would probably tell his wearable not
to share his identity with billboards he walks past to avoid the sort
of targeted advertising portrayed in the film ``Minority Report.''  Of
course, some bargain hunters may choose to share their identity with
advertisers to obtain better deals, much like membership cards in
today's grocery stores.

While wearable computers provide the user a sense of physical security
and control over his private data, many people express concern over
potential violations of privacy for others who happen to be near the
wearable user.  In fact, wearable computers provide little new
recording capability.  Hidden cameras have been commonly available for
over two decades, and hidden body-worn microphones have been used for
over half a century.  In truth, much of the populace in developed
countries already carry a hidden microphone in their pockets - the
mobile phone.  While mobile phone users believe that their phones are
``off'' when not in use, most modern phones actually use a ``soft''
power switch which only turns off parts of the phone.  In theory, a
service provider, government agency, or technically savvy cracker
could reprogram a mobile phone to record or transmit the user's audio
without their knowledge!  Perhaps what we need is a legal concept of
``body privacy.''  Misuse of information sensed or stored on a user's
body should carry the same penalties as theft of personal items
carried on the body.  Similarly, the same burden of proving sufficient
cause should be required of law enforcement agencies when searching
body-worn devices as when searching the user's body.

Given today's technology, a mobile phone user might record all his
conversations himself.  While this possibility certainly exists, as a
society in general, we do not worry about our colleagues recording
confidential conversations and using the information against us.  Such
an action would be a violation of the implicit social contracts we
have already evolved for everyday life.  In some sense, our colleagues
are accountable in that, if the information is used inappropriately,
we know who to blame.  In my research group, we avoid even this
possibility by using noise canceling microphones with our wearable
computers.  While these microphones can hear the user's side of the
conversation, the microphone's physical characteristics are designed
to avoid capturing environmental noises such as the other person's
speech.  My conversational partner may choose to make his speech
available to my wearable through the use of his own noise-cancelling
microphone, but, again, he controls his own data.

By using a combination of physical sensor limitations, legal recourse,
and social conventions, I believe that wearable computers can improve
our lives while protecting our privacy.  However, in order to
determine the issues involved, we need communities of early adopters
to experiment with the use of these devices and encourage meaningful
discussion on the topic.

--- end forwarded text


-- 
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R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah at ibuc.com>
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/>
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'