Conflict between privacy and personalisation in a pervasive service environment

For a pervasive system to function effectively in a world in which the user is surrounded by a large number of heterogeneous computing devices and communication systems, it is essential to provide adequate support for the user. For this personalisation is the key element, both for improving the user experience and for enabling it to function without the need for unnecessary interaction with the user. In pervasive systems personalisation can take a number of different forms, and four different forms of personalisation that have been incorporated into the pervasive system developed in the Daidalos project are described. The paper also describes two different approaches used to protect the privacy of the user in the two phases of Daidalos. However, there is an interaction between personalisation and privacy and some of the issues involved are discussed. These also affect proactive behaviour of the system. They are currently being used to plan the development of the second phase of the Daidalos pervasive system.