Privacy and Participation in Ubiquitous Information Systems: Information Ethics when Mobile Phones are Sensors

Ubiquitious information systems hold increasing promise for widespread participation in datacollection and dissemination. Common and abundant devices such as mobile phones cansense and record data such as location, sound, and images. These systems can facilitatecommunity participation in basic and applied research, improvement of quality of life, socialchange, self-reflection, and creative expression. But the design and use of these tools also posenew challenges for privacy, data security, and ethics.This paper explores responsible approaches to the design of systems for ubiquitous digitalcapture. The authors include an Information Studies researcher working alongside computerscientists and engineers from the Center for Embedded Networked Sensing (CENS). Thisongoing partnership pairs ethical frameworks developed within Information Studies andScience and Technology Studies with system design expertise and concrete, real-worldchallenges. For example, CENS is developing a platform to share activity inferences generatedwith geospatial data from mobile phones to assess personal environmental impact. CENS isalso exploring systems for capturing and sharing data about neighborhood walkability andother community assets. The ongoing research detailed in this paper investigates how suchubiquitous sensing projects can conscientiously collect personal data for social science andparticipatory research applications.