GDC: Group Discovery Using Co-Location Traces

Smart phones can collect and share Bluetooth co-location traces to identify ad hoc or semi-permanent social groups. This information, known to group members but otherwise unavailable, can be leveraged in applications and protocols, such as recommender systems or delay-tolerant forwarding in ad hoc networks, to enhance the user experience. Group discovery using Bluetooth co-location is practical because: Bluetooth is embedded in nearly every phone and has low battery consumption, the short wireless transmission range can lead to good group identification accuracy, and privacy-conscious users are more likely to share co-location data than absolute location data.