LOC-AID Looks to Support Wireless Carriers with Location Positioning Technology and Privacy Setting

I spoke to Rip Gerber yesterday, CEO of LOC-AID, a company supplying location positioning technology at the cell site level to wireless carriers. LOC-AID's primary goal is to help carriers monetize location-based services since companies like AT&T and VerizonWireless have already had to make a huge investment in complying with the FCC's E-911 mandate issued several years ago. LOC-AID believes thier stong suite is allowing carriers to enter areas where they can add more value for customers of wireless carriers by adding location privacy. In addition, LOC-AID sees an opportuity to mitigate fraud for credit card companies and reducing "false positives" and for authentification. It costs banks up to $30 if they have to make a call every time they need to verify the identity of a card holder if a fraudulant transaction is suspected. LOC-AID believes their technology will help verify by location a client and thereby eliminate the need to contact individuals.

As next week is CTIA, LOCA-AID will be showing technology that will allow handset users control of their privacy settings from a simple user interface. The UI has the ability to control various location settings that you have running on your phone. We know that to do this today, a users either turns off the location device switch on the phone or go to each app and turn off the function that allows location awareness. LOC-AID want to position this application with developers that could use this kind of control feature (or it could be white labeled in the future); carriers want to have this pre-loaded on the device which may be a simple off/on switch on the device. Another option is to install a widget along with the app and control the privacy settings from a website.

Now, why would LOC-AID, a company that wants to promte location-enabled applications, be interested in developing and application that introduces a "kill switch" on the device? Gerber say, "self-regulating" - by making it easier for users to easily turn on or off their location, they will feel much better about their ability to control their own privacy.