Collaborative Research: People and Place: Geographic Information Technologies and Patterns of Individual Identification

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This collaborative research project will examine the relation of emergent geographic information technologies to changing patterns of individual identification. The interdisciplinary research team will address the long-term social consequences, and in particular the consequences for personal privacy and identity, of the transition to digital geographic information systems. The project will provide a comprehensive comparative analysis of a set of case studies of information systems which incorporate both geographic and personally identifying data. This analysis will identify trends and tendencies in identification practice, theorize possible effects on social equity and power, conceptually separate local forces from more global ones, and suggest ways in which these technologies may be modified so that their use is more consistent with the protection of privacy and associated human values. The cases include developing systems in each of three areas of application: (1) Geodemographic Mapping; (2) Emergency Response Systems; and (3) Intelligent Vehicles and Mobile Telematics. The choice of cases is designed to facilitate comparisons along three dimensions. The first two dimensions concern the functions of the system: whether the geographic information system is intended to model places, populations, or mobile individuals; and whether the system is intended primarily to facilitate commerce or to regulate social risk. The third dimension concerns the jurisdiction within which the system operates. The chosen cases permit a complex set of comparisons that can hold aspects of each dimension constant, while varying aspects of the remaining dimensions. Each case study will employ the compilation and analysis of documentary and interview data to reveal the mechanics of the system's information collection and manipulation, the modeling of persons and places, and the institutional, economic, legal, and cultural context of the system's development and use. The research results will interest a variety of disciplinary and interdisciplinary groups, including scholars of communication and information technology, public policy, and geography, as well as public policy practitioners, technology developers, and privacy activists. Moreover, the research examines systems with which individuals will interact throughout their daily lives, often without meaningful knowledge and consent. Given the proliferation of systems based on geographic information and the growing public sensitivity to privacy and identity issues, the research results are likely to be of general public interest and valuable to policy discussions.