At one of the BlackBerry App World 2.0 launch events, TWiT’s Becky Worley learned that RIM will be leveraging their acquisition of Dash Navigation by crowdsourcing GPS information from BlackBerry users to build a traffic database. Sounds pretty clever, right? Well, by default such data sharing will apparently be enabled, and users will have to opt out manually. Additionally, developers will be able to access this GPS data through an API. Sounds like a privacy scandal just waiting to happen.
This is the spitting image of Facebook’s situation, which opened up people’s profiles for a time to the whole internet, and Google Buzz, which inadvertently shared e-mail addresses with complete strangers on the social network without prior consent. Of course, the BlackBerry GPS data to be collected by RIM would be wholly anonymous, but even under that pretense, we’ve seen Google accidentally save personal info when collecting Wi-Fi data. Giving developers access to BlackBerry GPS data without proactive consent from owners, however anonymous, could step on many people’s toes.
The alternative would be to make the service opt-in by default, but then RIM would likely have the same problem Dash did, in that their GPS data was pretty much useless due to a lack of users. Given, Dash’s problem was getting the devices into people’s hands, BlackBerry would be in the exact same spot if people didn’t know how to opt in, or were unwilling to do so.
Privacy aside, this reminds me of the trademarking of BlackBerry Drive yesterday, but didn’t know much about; perhaps BlackBerry Drive will be advanced crowdsourced traffic data integrated with a revamped BlackBerry Maps, which RIM is pushing hard in OS 6. The potential utility for third-party navigation apps is considerable, if RIM can pull this off without raising the ire of users. Personally, I figure if we’re already letting RIM handle all of our e-mails, a few GPS coordinates aren’t going to make a big difference.
Nothing is launched yet, so we don’t know how or if any of this will happen, but RIM will do something with Dash, and this GPS service sounds more likely than not. Video of the source below – it should start at 25:41.
[Tech News Today via RIMarkable, pic]