Title: Should geographic location data be regarded as sensitive? – some thoughts

Authors: Pernille Wegener Jessen

Addresses: Centre for International Business Law (CIBL), Department of Law, Aarhus School of Business and Social Sciences, Aarhus University, Hermodsvej 22, 8230 Abyhoj, Denmark

Abstract: The development of a consistent definition of sensitive data, in order to address consumer profiling, is a challenge. Part of the way to establish a consistent definition could be to find common ground on how to categorise geographic location data. Taking m-commerce and profiling as the starting points, this article puts forward some thoughts as to whether geographic location data should be categorised as sensitive personal data, at least when the data concern the precise real-time geographic location of an individual.

Keywords: data protection; geo-data; location data; sensitive data; geographic locations; consumer profiling; real-time; individual locations; private law; mobile commerce; m-commerce; e-commerce; electronic commerce; pervasive computing; privacy; marketing; legal aspects.

DOI: 10.1504/IJPL.2011.039361

International Journal of Private Law, 2011 Vol.4 No.2, pp.230 - 236

Published online: 28 Mar 2015 *

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