A Survey on Privacy in Location-Based Services

Abstract

Location services have become popular over the last years due to the global adoption of smartphones and the worldwide availability of the Global Positioning System (GPS) and other positioning methods. Locationbased services (LBSs) offer relevant information to users based on their location. Some common applications of LBSs are traffic or public transportation information, search of points of interest (restaurants, stores, etc.), navigation, among others. Despite all the desirable features that these services provide, most of them do not provide adequate protection of the geographical location of the users, putting them at risk if their information falls in wrong hands. This paper presents a compendium of techniques to protect the location privacy of the users, and introduces an approach to compare and evaluate the presented mechanisms and their viability to be used in different kinds of LBSs.