SoK: Mapping the Privacy Landscape of Geolocation Ecosystems
TL;DR
This work introduces an abstract model of geolocation ecosystems together with a systematic methodology for analyzing their privacy implications and reveals common structural privacy risks across heterogeneous ecosystems, which reflect architectural design decisions rather than security vulnerabilities or poor system design.
Abstract
Modern geolocation ecosystems rely on diverse technical solutions and architectures, often proprietary, making it difficult to develop a global understanding of the privacy implications of location data production. This challenge is particularly critical given the ubiquity of geolocation in modern digital infrastructures and the central role of location data in privacy concerns. Yet, existing work largely focuses on isolated case studies, resulting in a fragmented understanding of the privacy risks associated with location data production. In this work, we introduce an abstract model of geolocation ecosystems together with a systematic methodology for analyzing their privacy implications, which we apply to nine representative case studies spanning a broad range of architectures, from OS-level geolocation services to object-tracking platforms. This comparative analysis identifies structural design choices that significantly impact users' privacy and reveals common structural privacy risks across heterogeneous ecosystems, which reflect architectural design decisions rather than security vulnerabilities or poor system design. These findings, together with gaps identified in existing defense mechanisms, motivate research directions aimed at strengthening privacy in future geolocation architectures.