Patent ID: 8675852

Claim:
A method of providing location information for a principal, the method comprising: receiving at a presence server a presence event related to the principal, wherein the presence event relates to a location of the principal; storing by the presence server the location of the principal as a location attribute of a presence profile of the principal; applying by the presence server one or more of a plurality of policies, the plurality of policies including at least one policy for controlling access to the presence profile of the principal and at least one policy for filtering and transforming the location attribute based on the access, wherein the at least one policy for filtering and transforming the location attribute comprises a policy for controlling a specificity of the location attribute; receiving a request to access the location attribute of the presence profile of the principal; and in response to the request, providing access to the location attribute of the presence profile of the principal based on the at least one policy for controlling access to the presence profile of the principal and the at least one policy for filtering and transforming the location attribute based on the access.