Tracking Cell Phones for Real-Time Traffic Data

stillgoogling writes to tell us the Associated Press is reporting that the Missouri Department of Transportation is stepping up a project to track the mass movements of cellular phones. This project is designed to use the movements of cell phones to map real-time traffic conditions statewide on more than 5,500 miles of road. From the article: "Officials say there's no Big Brother agenda in the Missouri project -- the data will remain anonymous, leaving no possibility to track specific people from their driveway to their destination."

Comments

1984

[kcyber]

I don't think that the state will invest money only for traffic control purposes. Traffic was also the excuse for installing cameras on roads during the 2004 olympic games in Athens but were used to track people during demonstrations...

Text with FNORD-o-VISION

[Jace of Fuse!]

"Officials say there's no Big Brother agenda in the Missouri project (outside of the obvious)-- the data will remain anonymous (Unless we want to watch a specific person), leaving no possibility to track specific people from their driveway to their destination (without a reason, though any reason at all will do)."

Solution: Power Off Cell Phone for Privacy...

[Ron Bennett]

Simple solution is to power off the cell phone; some newer models are rumored to never truly power off - simple work-around if unsure / paranoid is to then place the phone into a shielded bag similar to what is provided to folks who use EZPass.

Cell phone tracking is already so prevalent that use for traffic monitoring is merely another extension of the extensive data collection that's already being going on for quite some time from cell phone users, including actual data, such as text messages sent/received.

On an aside, most folks have no real need to always have their cell phone on when driving - let the voice mail take calls and help keep the roads safer; due to lawsuits some companies forbid use of cell phones while driving, so why even leave the phone on...

Ron Bennett

Re:Solution: Power Off Cell Phone for Privacy...

[drewxhawaii]

simple work-around if unsure / paranoid is to then place the phone into a shielded bag similar to what is provided to folks who use EZPass

why not just remove the battery?

Re:Solution: Power Off Cell Phone for Privacy...

[rhsanborn]

Regardless of their actual intentions, I do remember hearing something about politicians promising that our SSN's will never become some national identification number also. It doesn't matter what they say right now, it matters that they will ahve the legislation and the technology to do things that may severly limit privacy and because they have it they will use it.

Re:Solution: Power Off Cell Phone for Privacy...

[penix1]

"why not just remove the battery?"

Why not just throw the damned thing away? I don't own a cell phone and never will. If you can't get me at home / work then it means I don't want to be gotten!

B.

Re:Solution: Power Off Cell Phone for Privacy...

[keraneuology]

Officials say there's no Big Brother agenda in the Missouri project -- the data will remain anonymous, leaving no possibility to track specific people from their driveway to their destination.

Do you think that they may actually be telling the truth and could in fact be trying to make life better? Nah! Conspiracy theories are much more fun!

But they aren't telling the truth: the claim that there is no possibility to track specific people simply isn't in line with the technology that is available out there. The enhanced 911 services that include GPS chips in cell phones were specifically designed so police and other authorities could identify the specific location of specific individuals. Nor is GPS even necessary to identify location: the most recent edition of Microsoft Streets & Trips (2006) has a "locate me" function that searches for local wireless signals and triangulates one's location accordingly. While this specific project has no aims of tracking the location of specific individuals the technology involved could clearly and easily be reallocated to a project that does.

There is no conspiracy theory here: the population has elected a body of officials that takes their assumed responsibilities very seriously and correctly believe that the citizenry as a whole wants them to behave in this fashion as if people really didn't want this stuff then they would elect into office people who would never allow these projects to proceed. The police are charged with catching the bad guys. A system that can pinpoint the location of every car can quickly catch a car thief, a reported kidnapper or a hit and run driver. When asked if they would like the cops to quickly catch these bad guys most people would say yes, so the cops assume that they have license to proceed. When an Amber Alert goes out, wouldn't it be much easier for a cop to just hit a button and see that the suspect's car just passed exit 237 on I-5 at 50mph?

Everybody wants the bad guys to be tracked, but since you aren't a bad guy you don't want to be tracked. The best solution is to only elect people into office who have high moral standards and a solid-to-the-core belief that governmental abuse is bad, but for the past generation at least these are precisely the people who aren't elected into office.

The government is like a sewer: what you get out of it depends on what you put into it. If you don't like the way things are being run, then either vote for somebody who will run things the way you want or run for office yourself.

Re:Solution: Power Off Cell Phone for Privacy...

[Chocolate Teapot]

But they aren't telling the truth: the claim that there is no possibility to track specific people simply isn't in line with the technology that is available out there

I think you are missing the point. Sure, there is a possibility to track individuals via their cellphone, but guess what? They don't this scheme in place to be able to do that. That is the very basis on which the proposed system will work. What they are saying is that with their system they will not be able to identify a specific person. They simply want to locate & count mobile phones anonymously to identify where the herd is stampeding. If the authorities want to track you, they will track you. You can be assured of that. If that is their desire, why would they try to hide behind a scheme like this? They would just do it.

P.S. I know where you live :)

Re:Solution: Power Off Cell Phone for Privacy...

[Secret Agent X23]

Do you think that they may actually be telling the truth and could in fact be trying to make life better? Nah! Conspiracy theories are much more fun!

Maybe they really are sincere about what they're saying. But that doesn't rule out the possibility that policies could change some time in the future. Anything that can be abused will be, sooner or later.

I invented a new way to map traffic conditions....

[Bob Cat - NYMPHS]

Just count the fucking CARS!!!

Automobile registration

[ewg]

The next invasion of privacy will be requiring every automobile to be registered with the government. Armed law enforcement agents will compel any vehicle not displaying its government id to stop.

Oh, wait a minute...

Make a little tinfoil hat for your phone!

[slappyjack]

The fact of the matter is, THEY can track you by your phone if THEY want to. THEY have been able to track you a bunch of other ways before this, if THEY wanted to. Maybe not your exact location right now, but close enough to go get you if THEY wanted to.

Then again, is it worth all the time worrying about THEM tracking you when most of the time THEY dont give a good goddamn if you're even alive, much less where you are at any given point in time, so long as you don't do anything horribly wrong.

I really can't see why people worry about this so much
<ramblin>
Things THEY could do to use the cell phone system more:
THEY could even use it to tell the highway partol where to put the speed traps now and start giving out a grip of speeding tickets. This would give an economic boost via court fees and fines, not to mention generating income for traffic court lawyers, whoc would then kick that back into the economy in the form of buying luxury items. Then we get a surplus of money in the government coffers, and they kick it back to the population of their respective states as a rebate every year, redistributing wealth from the people who can't seem to follow traffic laws to everyone else. (What? Have to speed to get where you're going? Sorry. Allow yourself more time to get where you;re goinig. Live closer to where you work. Your choice.)

Get stopped for doing something wrong and give the cops some fake id... lets check that against your cell phone, just for fun. "Sir, not to racially profile, but your cell phone says youre Eunice Witherspoon. You sure don't LOOK like a Eunice Witherspoon, being a man and all."

Or, like it has beeen said a million times already - you don't HAVE to have a cell phone. Carry a bunch of quarters and some disenfectant on you and use payphone!
</ramblin>

(hey, new submission posting form!)

System in Minnesota

[bb_referee]

The Minnesota Department of Transportation has real-time traffic tracking capabilities (http://www.dot.state.mn.us/tmc/trafficinfo/map/re freshmap.html) in the Minneapolis-St.Paul metropolitian area that are completely anonymous. Mn/DOT embeds detectors in the pavement down the center of each lane of the freeway and on every entrance ramp to measure volume, occupancy, speed, and flow. They use this information to control the freeway entrance meters. We are one of the few metro areas in the U.S. that effectively uses on-ramp meters to assist in controlling traffic flow during the dreaded rush hours.

This seems like a much better way to gather really useful traffic information than tracking cellular phone movements, especially with how spotty cellular tower coverage can be.