Systems and methods for enhancing privacy in connection with location-based services

1. A system comprising:

a processor; and

a non-transitory computer-readable storage device comprising computer-executable instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to perform operations comprising:

determining that user-system location data is needed by an application running at a user device;

determining a first user-system location;

determining a privacy parameter based on a location-accuracy requirement associated with the application;

generating, based on the privacy parameter and the first user-system location, privacy-adjusted location data indicating a second user-system location being less accurate than the first user-system location by an amount corresponding to a value of the privacy parameter; and

providing the privacy-adjusted location data to a destination for use in providing a location-dependent service by way of the application at the user device.

2. The system of claim 1 wherein the operations further comprise determining the location-accuracy requirement, including retrieving the location-accuracy requirement using at least one datum selected from a group consisting of an application identifier associated with the application or an application category corresponding to the application.

3. The system of claim 2 wherein the operation of determining the location-accuracy requirement associated with the application is based on a minimum accuracy stipulation associated with the application.

4. The system of claim 3 wherein the location-accuracy requirement determined is less accurate than the minimum accuracy stipulation associated with the application.

5. The system of claim 4 wherein the operation of determining the location-accuracy requirement comprises an operation selected from a group consisting of:

determining an amount of accuracy by which to reduce the minimum accuracy stipulation associated with the application, yielding the location-accuracy requirement being less accurate than the minimum accuracy stipulation; and

determining a lower-accuracy requirement corresponding to the application and being less accurate than the minimum accuracy stipulation.

6. The system of claim 1 wherein the operation of determining the privacy parameter is also based on a population-density requirement associated with a vicinity in which the user device is positioned.

7. The system of claim 6 wherein the operation of determining the privacy parameter comprises selecting as the privacy parameter whichever of the population-density requirement and the location-accuracy requirement would result in the generating operation yielding less-accurate location data for providing to the destination.

8. The system of claim 6 wherein the operations further comprise:

determining a population density corresponding to the first user-system location; and

determining the population-density requirement based on the population density.

9. The system of claim 8 wherein the operation of determining the population density comprises determining a density of mobile devices being within a pre-determined proximity of the first user-system location over a pre-determined period of time.

10. The system of claim 1 wherein:

the operation of generating the privacy-adjusted location data comprises calculating the second user-system location according to L 2 =(1+ε)L 1 ;

L 1 is the first user-system location;

L 2 is the second user-system location; and

ε is the privacy parameter.

11. The system of claim 1 wherein:

the operations further comprise:

determining geographic locations at which the user device has been;

determining, in connection with some or all of the geographic locations, in relation to a pre-determined time period:

a frequency metric (F) indicating a frequency of user visits with the user device to the geographic location;

a duration metric (D) indicating an average amount of time that the user device was positioned at the geographic location during the visits;

a regularity metric (R) indicating a periodicity of the visits; and

a recency metric (r) indicating how recent the visits were; and

the operation of determining the first user-system location comprises performing a spatio-temporal logistic regression in connection with some or all of the geographic locations to determine a most-probable user-system location, according to:

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for each geographic location (i), where α F , α D , α R , α r are pre-determined constants corresponding to the frequency (F), duration (D), regularity (R), and recency (r) metrics, respectively.

12. The system of claim 11 wherein each of the constants α F , α D , α R , α r is pre-determined based on at least one variable selected from a group consisting of a user preference and past positioning of the user-device.

13. The system of claim 1 wherein the user device is part of an automobile, and the first user-system location is an automobile location.

14. The system of claim 1 wherein the destination is a third-party application server being remote to the first user-system location and serving the application for providing the location-dependent service by way of the user device.

15. The system of claim 14 wherein the operation of providing the privacy-adjusted location data to the third-party application server comprises providing the privacy-adjusted location data to the third-party application server by way of a communication configured to reach the third-party application server without passing through the user device.

16. The system of claim 1 wherein the user device comprises or is part of the system.

17. The system of claim 1 wherein the system comprises or is part of a privacy server remote to the user device being at the first user-system location.

18. The system of claim 17 wherein the operation of determining the location-accuracy requirement associated with the application comprises receiving, from the user device, a datum selected from a group consisting of the location-accuracy requirement, an application category corresponding to the application, and an application identifier associated with the application.

19. A non-transitory computer-readable-storage device comprising computer-executable instructions that, when executed by a processor, cause the processor to perform operations comprising:

determining that user-system location data is needed by an application running at a user device;

determining a first user-system location;

determining a privacy parameter based on a location-accuracy requirement associated with the application;

generating, based on the privacy parameter and the first user-system location, privacy-adjusted location data indicating a second user-system location being less accurate than the first user-system location by an amount corresponding to a value of the privacy parameter; and

providing the privacy-adjusted location data to a destination for use in providing a location-dependent service by way of the application at the user device.

20. A process, comprising:

determining, by an apparatus comprising a processor executing computer-executable instructions of a non-transitory computer readable storage device, that user-system location data is needed by an application running at a user device;

determining, by the apparatus, a first user-system location;

determining, by the apparatus, a privacy parameter based on a location-accuracy requirement associated with the application;

generating, by the apparatus, based on the privacy parameter and the first user-system location, privacy-adjusted location data indicating a second user-system location being less accurate than the first user-system location by an amount corresponding to a value of the privacy parameter; and

providing, by the apparatus, the privacy-adjusted location data to a destination for use in providing a location-dependent service by way of the application at the user device.