A location privacy model and framework for mobile toy computing

Abstract

Many toys on the market are becoming integrated with the sensory and networking capabilities of mobile technology. Toy computing is an emerging area of research with the characteristics of physical computing, services computing, mobile technologies, and Bring Your Own Device (BYOD). There is currently no standard privacy-preserving framework for mobile toy computing applications. Children’s privacy is becoming a major concern for parents who wish to protect their children from potential harms related to the collection or misuse of their private data, particularly their location. This thesis provides an access control model for location privacy for children in the mobile toy computing environment. From this model we derive a policy specification language using XACML vocabulary with extensions for location privacy, as well as a technical framework to enforce the policies. Finally, the framework is tested through prototyping and case studies for proof of concept.