Privacy is essential for secure mobile devices

This paper contradicts the commonly held view that privacy and security of data must sometimes be sacrificed for the sake of national security. We demonstrate that for specific examples of real mobile devices, such as mobile phones, Wi-Fi®, electronic passports, and electronic government-employee ID cards, lack of sufficient attention to privacy actually harms the intended national security applications. We then present as a case study the Caernarvon high-security smart-card operating system developed by IBM, to show the feasibility of harmonizing personal privacy and security requirements with national security needs. © Copyright 2009 by International Business Machines Corporation.