Location Data Is Transforming The Mobile Industry

Can you throw more light on "mobile location dilemma" and give a few examples of companies (masking their names is fine) who have prospered and become more agile by not disregarding the "need for real-time location data on all mobile devices" without, hopefully, running afoul of customer privacy concerns. 

Many thanks for your interest!

Location based information provides your physical location at any point of time, this current  information combined with personal “customer information” (or historic information) provides valuable insight, but only if the information can be moved processed and action in near real-time. Anything slower and you lose the opportunity. 

Let’s take a few examples:  

Financial Services In financial services knowing that a transaction has been completed on a mobile device in a specific location is important from a forensic perspective. Location based information, coupled with local CCTV coverage proves without doubt that a trade or transaction has been concluded legitimately or not. The requirement to move more data in real-time is a growing challenge, along with the collaboration of other devices. 

Retail A consumer is in a major city and uses their “AroundMe” free app to find a local bar or coffee shop. The AroundMe App is a location-based service (LBS) so it is has their physical location (assuming it is shared). While putting in my search the AroundMe has captured that one of my preferences is Starbucks but it’s not the nearest coffee shop. Starbuck’s is advertising on AroundMe and offers the consumer 100% off a purchase (i.e. a free drink or purchase from Starbucks). However every minute it takes the consumer to get to Starbucks the discount is reduced by 10%, tracking the consumer using LBS they finally get to Starbucks five minutes later, the counter stops and a redeemable voucher is sent to their phone, or electronically attached to their loyalty scheme. Location and voucher information is being shared, combined with personal preferences you build on your customer loyalty, and their wallet share. 

Logistics / Transport In logistics and transport centrally monitoring your fleet of vehicles, their pay load, driver behavior, traffic, transport and vehicle diagnostics is critical to not only optimizing your operation. Taking vehicles out of service for preventive maintenance, notifying suppliers of up to the second times of arrival and managing regulatory requirements around working hours all drive huge amounts of data. 

These applications all need efficient bi-directional data distribution technology that has been optimised for mobile environments, where bandwidth is both limited and costly and where the data is both vast but also moving quickly.

Okay, thanks, the Retail and Logistics / Transport use cases are clear. The Financial Services example is obviously a Card Present transaction. Since CP is anyway authenticated with PIN / Signature, I'm not sure why LBS / CCTV info is required to prove that a transaction has happened or not.

You raise a good point. However, banks still have a large number of "phantom ATM withdrawals". 

It's not uncommon for bank customers to report suspicious ATM withdrawals where money has been taken from their accounts without their knowledge. Bank security cameras which record every ATM transaction can provide answers. Preventing fraud is crucial but it is also very expensive. IP video surveillance systems with advanced video analytics such as facial recognition are helping to fight the problem by recording transaction data and capturing images of offenders. This information can be used to identify criminals and helps in protecting customer accounts. Linking this data with location based information provides richer forensic data that can be used to challenge fraud, but also identify others nearby potential witnesses, offenders or indeed suspects.

Multi-factor authentication is still relatively easy to obtain, for example a friend of mine who’s elderly mother lives alone, was seeing large sums of money taken from her account, which she had not taken. It later transpired that a young boy in the village entered the house through the cat flap. Took her bank card  from her purse along with a piece of paper in her purse with her PIN on it. The boy withdrew cash from the ATM in the high street, and then returned the ATM card to the purse. He did this five times before being caught.  The video image later proved without doubt who was withdrawing the cash. However by tracking his device (his location) and linking it to the location (of the elderly lady) and then the ATM on the high street would have been a lower cost solution to fight crime.

Does that help?