Dr. Sean Wang, Dorothean Professor in the Computer Science Department of UVM's College of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences, has been awarded a grant of $221,988 from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to study privacy protection techniques in location-based services (LBS). The project is a collaboration between Professor Wang, who is the principal investigator, and researchers at George Mason University.

Location-based services (LBS) use knowledge of the location of people, places, and things to personalize and enhance mobile services. For example, when you use a cell phone to search for a restaurant, LBS technology determines your location then provides a list of restaurants within a certain proximity.

But when, why, and how is your location being used by that application? Dr. Wang's project will analyze the privacy challenges of LBS that are critical to users as well as service providers. The project is part of the NSF's Cyber Trust program, established to promote research into more dependable, accountable, and secure computer and network systems.

From an educational perspective, the project will expose graduate students to leading-edge research and incorporate research results into the classroom. In addition, the project provides a platform for active collaboration among a broad set of researchers at the two institutions involved.

The project's goal is to have a positive impact on protecting user privacy and on people's willingness to adopt LBS in enhancing their living and working conditions.

For more information, contact Dr. Wang at Sean.Wang@uvm.edu or visit his website at www.cs.uvm.edu/~xywang/.