UK researchers are to investigate potential abuse of near-field communications (NFC).
NFC is the inductive loop communication technology behind London's Oyster Cars public transport payment system, and which can also be used for small payments and to add digital data to otherwise dumb objects like posters via embedded passive RFID tags.
Phone companies are adding NFC emulation to their mobiles - to allow them to act as a payment card, as well as adding NFC reading to allow phones to pull data from tags.
Researchers from the London School of Economics (LSE) and from Nokia will investigate how information generated by customers of mobile services is being used, and whether customer behaviour is affected by concerns about privacy.
They will also look at the regulations and policies governing NFC in Europe and Asia, and consider incentives and barriers to commercial development.
"Issues of privacy are especially important for companies using NFC given the rise of the 'citizen user' - technology savvy individuals who are very aware of how they are generating information about themselves and how this might be potentially abused," said Jonathan Liebenau, project leader and reader in technology management at LSE. "If these users are not convinced that they can trust technologies that employ NFC, it could affect how willing they and others are to adopt them."
So far, NFC use has been limited.
"Nokia has provided NFC-enabled mobile phones for commercial services in many countries since 2005. New services are emerging and we are working with partners to ensure their successful deployment," said Nokia v-p of industry collaboration Mark Selby. "Nokia is keen to understand the implications for the privacy of consumers, as well as regulations and policies concerning commercial services."