Privacy and Trust Issues in Context-Aware Pervasive Computing: State-of-the-Art and Future Directions

Abstract

The growing evolution of information and communication technology (ICT) systems towards more pervasive and ubiquitous infrastructures contribute significantly to the deployment of services anywhere, at anytime and for anyone. To provide personalized services in such infrastructures, we should consider both user’s privacy and security requirements and context-awareness environment. This can be really achieved owing to context awareness systems which allow us to benefit from sensing and mobile technologies to derive more accurate data about the user and his/her location. While the availability of contextual information may introduce new threats against security and privacy, it can also be used to improve dynamic, adaptive and autonomic aspects of security, and user privacy. Moreover, context-aware information offers new opportunities for the establishment of trust relationship among involved entities (e.g., users, devices, and platforms). As context awareness represents new challenges and new opportunities regarding privacy, trust and security of users in pervasive computing environments (PCE), the main purpose of this chapter aims to survey each of the involved issues to understand and address the interdependencies among them.