Microsoft Gives Advice On Location Privacy

Data Privacy Day (28 January) has come and gone with little fanfare, however the goal and message of the event hasn't gone un-noticed. Several companies, including Microsoft have spoken out and offered advice to consumers on how to protect themselves against threats resulting from the use of location awareness, found in an increasing range of hardware devices and used by many social networking sites.

Microsoft's advice, just don't do it! Especially when it comes to "check-ins" that offer GPS location services.

In a post on his blog, Brendon Lynch, Chief Privacy Officer at Microsoft, provides several more tips. Most are pretty common sense but many are fairly often overlooked in today's connected society. Suggestions include:

• Limit who you add to your social network location services, and do not make your location data publicly available or searchable.
• Only trusted friends should know your location. If you have contacts you don't fully know or trust, it's time to do a purge.

More information on the research MS has conducted about Data privacy can be found on the Microsoft Data Privacy Day website. For more information on Data Privacy Day, read this feature story on the Microsoft News Center.