Seems like everyone in DC wants to examine location-based services. The Federal Communications Commission announced Tuesday that it will hold a June 28 forum on the topic, and Google and Apple are on the invite list.
The FCC is partnering with the Federal Trade Commission for a public education forum that will explore "how consumers can be both smart and secure when realizing the benefits of location based services (LBS)."
Topics on the agenda will include: how LBS works; benefits and risks of LBS; what consumers should and should not do; industry best practices; and what parents should know about location tracking when their children use mobile devices, the FCC said in a public notice.
The event will take place from 9am to 3pm at FCC headquarters. Information gathered at the event will be included in an upcoming FCC staff report on location-based services.
Representatives from Apple and Google have been invited to attend. The FCC notice said a full agenda and panelists will be "provided in a future release."
The flurry of activity surrounding location-based activity, of course, kicked off last month when researchers revealed that iOS 4 devices were storing up to a year's worth of location data on peoples' iPhones in an insecure manner and syncing that data with a user's computer. Apple denied it was tracking its users but said a "bug" was causing the iPhone to capture too much data. The iOS 4.3.3 release fixed the settings to only capture a week's worth of data and not sync it with the computer. A future version of iOS will encrypt that data.
"Recent reports have raised concerns about the location-based information that is gathered when consumers use mobile devices," the FCC said in its notice. "While the use of location data has spurred innovation, the FCC's National Broadband Plan recognizes that consumer apprehension about privacy can also act as a barrier to the adoption and utilization of broadband and mobile devices."
"Clear information and public education can help consumers better understand these services," the agency said.
The FCC and FTC have actually been working on this issue since last summer, when FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski and FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz established a Joint Privacy Task Force. The FCC also has an internal working group that has been examining the privacy implications of location-based services for several months.
Guy L. "Bud" Tribble, vice president of software technology at Apple, and Alan Davidson, director of public policy for the Americas at Google, were on Capitol Hill last week to discuss location-based services with the Senate Judiciary Committee. Sen. Al Franken, a Minnesota Democrat, said he had "serious concerns" about how the data was handled. At that hearing, Apple also said it has not removed any apps for mishandling location data; it typically works with them to rectify any problems rather than immediately yanking them from the App Store. For its part, Google said it anonymizes user location data and deletes it within a week.
The Senate Commerce Committee, meanwhile, is scheduled to give its two cents on location services at a Thursday hearing. Google's Davidson and Catherine A. Novelli, vice president of worldwide government affairs at Apple, as well as Bret Taylor, chief technology officer at Facebook, have been invited to attend. It kicks off at 10am and will be webcast on the committee's Web site.
News of the FCC forum came the same day that Sen. Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat, announced an overhaul of a 1986 digital privacy law that would incorporate email, cloud services, and location-based data. Specifically, the government would be required to obtain warrants before combing through any data on those services.