IEEE P802.11-TASK GROUP BI (EDP) MEETING UPDATE

Status of Project IEEE P802.11bi - Enhanced Data Privacy

Carol Ansley (Affiliation: Self), Chair

Background: Enhanced Data Privacy

Users and regulatory agencies are concerned about protecting personal information such as location, movements, contacts and activities. 
IEEE 802.11 is cognisant of these issues and through this task group will strive to provide enhanced data privacy for all users.

The Enhanced Data Privacy Task Group came out of a study group within the IEEE 802.11 working group originally considering the merits and challenges presented by the privacy-related initiatives behind the deployment of randomized and changing MAC addresses within 802.11-based networks that grew to also include other privacy-related concerns.  

Scope of TGbi

This amendment specifies modifications to the IEEE Std 802.11 medium access control (MAC) specification to specify new mechanisms that address and improve user privacy.

Users and regulatory agencies are concerned about protecting personal information such as locations, movements, contacts and activities, etc. Devices incorporating IEEE Std 802.11 are ubiquitous, and being compliant with IEEE Std 802.11 does not sufficiently protect users from user tracking and user profiling attacks.

Work has been done in this area in IEEE Std 802.11aq-2018. To ensure continued growth and support for IEEE Std 802.11, this project standardizes user privacy solutions applicable to IEEE Std 802.11.

Activities of TGbi

The group expects to have a participation of about 50 people during the lifetime of the project, which is estimated to finish in September 2025. The next steps are to proceed with teleconferences every 2 weeks and also meet during the online May 2021 interim.

The first goal of TGbi is to identify potential areas of concern and use cases to be addressed.  As use cases are identified, we will turn to the development of technical solutions and recommendations.

The task group welcomes all interested parties from industry and academia to participate.

Find documents:

Link to TGbi PAR

https://development.standards.ieee.org/myproject-web/public/view.html#pardetail/8772

Link to TGbi CSD

https://mentor.ieee.org/802.11/dcn/20/11-20-1346-04-0rcm-csd-draft-for-privacy-amendment-of-rcm-project.docx

 

Status as of 30 March 2021

The task group met during the March Plenary.  Stephen McCann and Jerome Henry were elected Vice Chairs.  Amelia Andersdotter was appointed and confirmed as Secretary. Po-Kai Huang was appointed and confirmed as Technical Editor.

The upcoming teleconference schedule follows:

Thursday April 8                10am-12pmET – Composing working plan, then technical submissions

Thursday April 22             10am-12pmET – Technical submissions

Thursday May 6                10am-12pmET – Interim Session Prep

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This page is maintained by Carol Ansley (last update: 2021-03-30). Comments are welcome.

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