DUBLIN, Ireland-- Research and Markets (http://www.researchandmarkets.com/reports/c82919) has announced the addition of “GPS Mobile Phones: the Privacy and Regulatory Issues” to their offering.

 The report predicts that by 2012 the worldwide user base of the most popular location-enabled services, navigation and mobile social networking, will reach 150 and 127 million respectively. This growth in the availability of handset location information (LI) raises many questions about the degree to which users can be protected from potential abuses of their LI.

In this report, the author examines the market for GPS phones, location finding techniques, legal and regulatory implications of GPS phones and technologies available for managing location privacy. The author’s analysis of the emerging LBS market reveals that there is a potential for serious abuses of location privacy in cases where the use of location information has not been adequately regulated.

Topics of coverage include:

- A review of positioning technologies that allow handsets to be located

- Descriptions of the main types of LBS applications: personal security, navigation, education & gaming, enterprise, social networking, commerce and Government

- Analysis of the legal, regulatory and technological mechanisms available for the protection of location privacy

- Examination of existing government regulation in selected countries/regions

- Discussion of various industry initiatives and codes of practice

- Recommendations for regulators, operators and LBS providers to ensure protection of personal location information

- Forecasts for annual GPS phone shipment and total installed base of GPS handsets

- Forecast for user numbers of the main types of LBS applications

Answers and opinions are provided with respect to the following essential questions:

- How will GPS handset volumes grow over the coming years?

- What is the significance of active and passive location services?

- How is handset location accuracy set to evolve?

- Why is it important that location privacy regulation is not restricted to operators?

- What are the location applications which have the biggest implications for privacy?

- How is E911, E112, eCall and ELRS affecting the GPS phone market?

- What are the techniques for managing location privacy?

- How effective has industry self-regulation been?

- Why should a piecemeal approach to regulation be avoided?

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Companies Mentioned:

- 3 UK

- Argyll Telecom

- BlueSky Positioning

- Cellfire

- CityNeo

- CTIA (US)

- European Commission (EC)

- European Space Agency

- FCC

- followGB

- FollowUS

- Global Locate

- Google

- Helio

- Infineon

- KDDI

- LG

- MeetMoi

- Microsoft

- Ministry of Information and Industry (China)

- Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications (Japan)

- Mobile Commerce

- Mobile Marketing Association

- Mobiqa

- Motorola

- Navizon

- Network in Motion

- NeuStar

- Nokia

- O2

- OECD

- Ofcom (UK)

- Open Geospatial Consortium

- Open Mobile Alliance (OMA)

- Openwave

- Orange

- Orbis

- Ordnance Survey

- PCCW Directories

- Qualcomm

- RealReplay

- Shozu

- Skyhook

- Sprint Nextel

- Symbian

- TCS

- Tele Atlas

- TeleNav

- TI

- The Location Company

- The Shroud

- Trueposition

- UpGrade InTouch

- Verisign

- Verizon

- Vodafone

- WaveMarkets

- WeatherBug

For more information, visit http://www.researchandmarkets.com/reports/c82919