A cellphone operating system designed to encourage web surfing on the go could trigger a fresh assault on privacy.
On 5 November, Google and 30 partners unveiled a joint venture called the Open Handset Alliance that aims to develop a Linux-based open-source cellphone operating system to be called Android. Anyone will be able to write applications for Android, and Google hopes this will lead to applications that free users from today鈥檚 clunky handset browsers and web portals.
鈥淭hey are trying to take the 鈥榤obile鈥� out of the mobile internet, making it as close to the experience on a PC as possible,鈥� says Ben Wood of telecoms consultancy CCS Insight in Solihull, UK.
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What worries some privacy experts, though, is the combination of Google鈥檚 policy of retaining users鈥� search histories and a cellphone鈥檚 ability to reveal your location and store the numbers you have called. Simon Davies of the watchdog Privacy International in London says that if Android merges location and calling data with that gathered by search engines, Google will be able to retain more detailed information on users. 鈥淎ndroid has the potential to be a privacy Chernobyl,鈥� he says. Ian Brown at the Oxford Internet Institute agrees: 鈥淚 wouldn鈥檛 want Google having a day-to-day history of my searches, where I have been and who I am phoning. I wouldn鈥檛 buy such a phone.鈥�
It doesn鈥檛 have to work out this way. 鈥淲ith the right combination of user controls, privacy safeguards and responsible action, it could create privacy gains,鈥� Davies says.
