Traffic App Waze To Alert L.A. Drivers of Kidnappings and Hit-and-Runs

An anonymous reader writes: Traffic-alert app Waze has announced a partnership with Los Angeles to share information on hit-and-runs and kidnappings taking place across the city, alongside traffic data and road closure updates. The deal forms part of a data-sharing agreement between L.A. authorities and the Google-owned tech startup detailed yesterday by the city's mayor Eric Garcetti. He assured that the data provided to the city by Waze would be "aggregated" and completely anonymous. According to the councillor the collaboration was mutually confirmed on Monday following a "very good meeting" between Waze and LAPD chief officer Charlie Beck. This move signals a considerable turn of events after Beck argued at the end of last year that the traffic alert app posed a danger to police due to its ability to track their location. The complaint followed the shooting of two police officers in New York after the shooter used the app to track his targets.

Comments

Aggregated intelligence

[__aabppq7737]

He assured that the data provided to the city by Waze would be "aggregated" and completely anonymous

It'd be way too easy to combine this "aggregated" intelligence with what "smart" traffic sensors already know to de-anonymize pretty much every piece of data.

Re:Aggregated intelligence

[geekmux]

He assured that the data provided to the city by Waze would be "aggregated" and completely anonymous

It'd be way too easy to combine this "aggregated" intelligence with what "smart" traffic sensors already know to de-anonymize pretty much every piece of data.

Sorry, but with ALL of the ties to an individual (billing, address, Google, Apple, etc.) that your personal cell phone has (also known as the exclusive device Waze runs on), you're not going to convince me for one second that any data streaming from my cell phone is "anonymous".

No fucking way.

If more people realized this, we would call out these "aggregated" and "metadata" justifications for what they are; complete and total bullshit.

Re:But ...

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Someone seems to have forgotten you can legally use your cell phone as a GPS.

Because we don't crash enough cars...

[damn_registrars]

This app, giving people real time updates on their smart phones, is probably not the best thing we could have for public safety. More than a few knuckleheads would likely think they were doing the right thing by putting it on their phone, until they try to read it while driving and end up causing an accident by way of their distracted driving.

Re:Because we don't crash enough cars...

[damn_registrars]

The numbers of fatal accidents has been decreasing the past thirty years

I understand that to have more to do with cars being safer than anything else. Anti lock brakes and air bags are now standard in the overwhelming majority of cars on American roads today, amongst other things.

Cell phones have had no noticeable statistical effect

If we're talking over the same period of time (30 years as you said earlier) it is impossible for them not to. There were quite nearly zero cell phones in 1985. We now regularly have serious - and sometimes fatal - accidents caused by idiots who believe they can safely read and write text messages on their phones while driving. It appears you are looking at the general downward trend of fatal accidents per capita, and then saying that nothing could possibly have a negative impact on that. That simply doesn't work.

Escape from LA

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

>> kidnappings

If you live in a city where "kidnappings" is just considered another statistics...it might be time to move.