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GPS Maker TomTom Submits Your Speed Data To Police

Posted by timothy on from the put-your-speed-trap-riiiiight-here dept.

An anonymous reader writes "The GPS systems in TomTom's Live range all feature built-in 3G data cards, which feed location and route information back to a central server. According to CNET, this data, along with users' speed information, is being made available to local governments and the police." From the article: "Knowing the cops can see where you're driving and how fast you're going is eye-opening stuff, but TomTom says the data is anonymous and can never be traced back to an individual user or device. Ordinarily, we'd be reassured by this, but we recall Apple saying something similar before the location-tracking excrement hit the phone-carrying fan."

5 of 422 comments (clear)

  1. For those who won't RTFA; by fridaynightsmoke · · Score: 5, Informative

    The story is that the data was used by Dutch police to determine where to set up speed traps. The data was NOT used to go after any TomTom users for speeding.

    It's still a somewhat dastardly tactic, but not quite what people on here are seeing it to be.

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    1. Re:For those who won't RTFA; by Teun · · Score: 5, Informative
      Yesterday morning he story broke via the largest Dutch newspaper and last night I received a mail from TomTom stating this was not what they expected and they would prevent any further use of their data for this purpose.

      What actually happened is they sell the aggregated data to whoever is interested, one company distilled out the stretches of road where most speeding happened and sold it to the police.

      Then the police used this to select places for speed traps.

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  2. Attention. by kitsunewarlock · · Score: 5, Funny

    You only have six points remaining on your license.

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  3. Re:So I read the Article... by Attila+Dimedici · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Isn't that exactly the same thing? If you want to make money, you place cameras where people most often speed. If you want to prevent high-speed accidents... just the same.

    No, it isn't. If you want to make money, you place cameras where people most often speed. If you want to prevent high speed accidents, you assign police officers to patrol areas where people drive dangerously. Speed ticket cameras do not cause people to slow down (or at least they take a significant amount of time to do so). The presence of police officers always results in people slowing down. Additionally, areas where the police are frequently visible have significantly slower traffic than areas where the police are rarely seen.

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  4. Re:So I read the Article... by ColdWetDog · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Most people are perfectly capable of controlling their vehicle and allowing sufficient space beyond the ridiculously low limits.

    Where do you live? MOST places I've driven, the only safe speed would be zero. Really, there are enormous numbers of drivers who have fundamental issues with parking lots, much less the actual roadway.

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