Tracking Your Cell Phone for Traffic Reports

BostonBTS writes "IntelliOne Technologies has just launched a real-world test of Need4Speed, a real-time traffic-monitoring system that tracks drivers' cell phones. From their website: 'Unlike any other solution available today, the IntelliOne Roadway Speed Measurement System produces live roadway speeds for all highways and surface streets where mobile phone coverage exists, accurate to within three miles per hour.' Of course, any compulsory phone-tracking system raises privacy concerns. According to an article on LiveScience, 'the personal identification data of users will be stripped from cell phone signals before they are processed by IntelliOne's software.' The cell phone companies have this data, but IntelliOne says they won't be keeping their copy."

Comments

Of course!

[dotslashdot]

And of course, AOL won't be releasing your search terms, the NSA won't be listening to your phone conversations or tracking your surfing habits, private companies won't be stockpiling huge warehouses of data to give to the government and you can trust a president who choked and fell while eating a pretzel to check and balance himself.

Re:This is not GPS

[StikyPad]

The other huge boon to this is for the state. Imagine if you could see traffic trends by the minute covering trends over months. You could quickly identify dangerous traffic areas, distractions, traffic quirks, and all sorts of oddities that could be engineered around to reduce injuries, fatalities, and expenses.

Well that's the best case, but I'd find it much more likely that the state would look for stretches of road where the average speed exceeds the speed limit, aka "areas of potential revenue and quota filling."