Social, Local and Mobile Identity Management. The development of a user-centric open SoLoMo platform.

A popular buzzword these days is SoLoMo, as the contraction of Social, Local and Mobile. This refers to the convergence between social, local and mobile services and platforms. The combination of these three attributes responds to the always connected and interactive modern consumer, but also often leads to privacy concerns. Users, mobile operators, application providers and other third parties can access huge amounts of personal data for different purposes. The myriad of potential uses for personal data and the obscurity thereof increases consumers' reluctancy to fully adopt SoLoMo services. SoLoMo technology providers are challenged to balance between giving users more control over their mobile identity, but at the same time they also have to offer access to service providers and third parties to guarantee a working service and revenue. There is a need for a solution that can find a balance between privacy protection for users and the amount of information third parties need. The SoLoMIDEM project aims at developing a multi- layered open SoLoMo platform, in which an optimal exploitation of big data is possible for each of its stakeholders, with the end user as primary stakeholder. For this we discuss the meaning of (location) privacy and identity in relation to privacy awareness, attitudes, capabilities and practices of users. We also elaborate on the key concepts of Location Based Services (LBS), providing a brief overview of relevant literature. In a next phase our empirical user research will deepen our understanding of the specificities of user privacy in a SoLoMo context.