New technologies often face initial consumer confusion about whether they may be used maliciously. iBeacon is no exception. Over the last year some press reports have written about tracking beacons and raised some alarm among the public with a number of worrisome scenarios. That’s why we want to clarify how Estimote is taking effort to assure our customers treat users’ privacy very seriously and why beacons are not designed to track anyone.
Asking the right questions
Many customers ask us if it’s mandatory for users to have an app installed on smartphones in order to receive beacon-triggered notifications. And when they learn the answer is yes, some of them want to know if there are ways to work around this. The answer is: no, it’s not possible and we strongly discourage this kind of thinking. Why? Because we believe that one of our primary responsibilities, other than building the product, is evangelizing best practices for deploying beacons. What all clients learn from us is this: begin with asking the right question. And that is not “How do I push messages to people without them installing my app?” but rather ”How do I create a solution with enough added value that users are incentivized to download my app?”
The app requirement has been widely feared as an obstacle standing in the way of widespread adoption of beacons. That’s just wrong. We’re convinced it’s actually one of the greatest things about iBeacon. It puts focus on the opt-in part of the experience. Pushing meaningless ads to people is easy enough already. So easy, in fact, that we as a society have developed “banner blindness.” And that’s exactly what we want to avoid with beacons and precisely why the opt-in element of iBeacon matters. If you deliberately download an app and opt in, you will not be blind to its content. You are clearly signaling your intent to receive and consume that content. This dynamic is at the core of our philosophy.
If brands and businesses deliver clear value, providing users with engaging experiences and minimizing the friction between physical and digital, they won’t have to worry about needing an app. People will be eager to install and actively use those apps – whether it’s about helping visually impaired in public transport, finding your way around a huge event, or just quickly grabbing a coffee in Palo Alto. It would be shortsighted to think otherwise: at this stage of iBeacon development, each low-quality deployment can harm the perception of the whole technology and slow down its growth.
Can beacons track you?
Asking the right questions is about educating our customers. But we also want to help educate and reassure our customers’ customers: the end users. And a primary question end users and the general public has is whether beacons can track them. No, they cannot.
Beacons are pretty straightforward: they simply broadcast a one-way radio signal. In addition, the Bluetooth Smart standard is designed to transmit very small packets of information, so it remains as energy efficient as possible. Therefore, the only data contained in an iBeacon signal are the ID of an individual beacon and information used by mobile devices to estimate proximity. So without an app that knows how to look for a particular set of beacons (i.e., those beacons’ unique identifiers) - and to which you have explicitly opted in - a retailer/brand (or other venue with beacons deployed) won’t be able to detect your presence.
Alright, so beacons themselves have no way of tracking you. But what about the apps? Apple is known for their sensitivity about users’ right to privacy. If you want your application to utilize iBeacon, you need to comply with their guidelines and permission system (read the explanation of iOS 8 Location Services on our Community Portal). This means your app has to explicitly ask for user permission to be able to constantly access their location data. And even then, it still has to repeat this question from time to time. A user can always opt out with a tap of a button. Any app that doesn’t comply will find itself rejected during Apple’s app review process.
Going further, how do we at Estimote ensure that after you opt in to an app, that very app isn’t using your data in an undesirable way? First and foremost, by educating our developer community. Data can be collected and used to improve existing solutions. It’s even more true in the age of contextual computing, when knowing your consumers better means being more relevant. Take a look at Google Translate: they wouldn’t be able to create arguably the best online translator without storing billions upon billions of user queries that they use to refine their translation software.
But not every company builds their product with such a noble intent. We’re well aware of that and that’s why we’re optimizing for the end user. Estimote was founded in the heart of Europe and as such, the region’s care and sensitivity for privacy concerns are also a part of our corporate DNA. It’s what drives us to work tirelessly on improving our security mechanisms. But we’re not stopping there. We know all the MAC addresses (unique identifiers for wireless devices) of every beacon we’ve ever manufactured. This means we can also link each unit to a particular deployment and identify companies who aren’t following the best practices for data usage and privacy policy. We can then discuss the issues directly with those customers and work together on necessary improvements. Our confidence in this approach is best highlighted in the design of Estimote Beacons and Stickers. They’re colorful and eye-catching, because we don’t believe hiding them from users’ view is the way to go.
User privacy and the general experience of people using contextual apps built on top of the Estimote platform is very important to us. It’s a sensitive matter, but we want to make it absolutely clear: we’re against tracking without consent and any malicious use of collected data. We will always work to gain and keep your trust through honesty and transparency. As always, don’t hesitate to reach out with questions, concerns or feedback, either via our social channels or by email.
Wojtek Borowicz, Community Evangelist at Estimote