WASHINGTON-At least two national mobile-phone carriers are unilaterally selling huge amounts of subscriber location data to third parties for city and state traffic management. The practice has the potential to reduce traffic congestion where other intelligent-highway systems have failed, but has drawn mild criticism from privacy advocates.
Cingular Wireless L.L.C. is working with Delcan-NET, headquartered in Schaumburg, Ill., which in turn is negotiating with the Missouri Department of Transportation on a $3 million contract to launch a statewide system that translates drivers’ cell-phone signal movements into real-time information on vehicular speeds and traffic flow.
“That’s very valuable traffic flow data,” said Jeffrey Briggs, a spokesman for the Missouri Department of Transportation. The MDOT project, which would be the largest of its kind in the United States, is slated for operation in early 2006.
Briggs said highway cell-phone tracking is more cost effective and useful than cameras, sensors and other methods used to discern traffic patterns. In addition to helping improve traffic management, Briggs said the cell-phone location data, transformed by sophisticated software into useable information for transportation managers, could aid state officials in planning for-and investing in-highway improvements.
Cingular also is participating with Delcan-NET in an intelligent highway pilot in Baltimore. In May, Delcan-NET, a unit of Delcan Corp., announced a partnership with ITIS Holdings Inc. to deliver real-time traffic flow information to states around the country using “cellular floating vehicle data.” The technology was developed by a subsidiary of Israel-based ITIS.
Sprint Nextel Corp. is selling cell-phone location data to Atlanta-based AirSage Inc. for a project covering Interstate 75 between Atlanta and Macon, Ga., through a contract between AirSage and the Georgia Department of Transportation. Sprint Nextel cell-phone location data also has been used in intelligent-highway trials in Hampton Roads, Va., in collaboration with the Virginia Department of Transportation and the University of Virginia.
Though subscriber signaling data is anonymous, privacy watchdogs warn there is potential for abuse.
“It appears the cellular carriers believe this is not covered by the CPNI (customer proprietary network information) regulations because the data is anonymous. If that’s the case, the carriers have to be sure the anonymity technology is secure,” said James Dempsey, executive director of the Center for Democracy and Technology.
The law requires wireless carriers to seek prior consent from customers before divulging an identifiable customer’s location to a marketer or other third party.
Dempsey, citing historical trends, said the cell-phone tracking technology might prove so successful as to attract the interest of the U.S. government in the post-9/11 world.
Chris Hoofnagle, senior counsel of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, makes a similar point.
“The basic case is that once a system of surveillance is created, its purpose can morph into something else. It’s commonly called mission creep,” said Hoofnagle.
Wireless carriers, transportation vendors and state officials insist customer privacy is well guarded by cell-phone signal tracking technologies.
“Our participation in the trial is entirely consistent with our strong commitment to protecting customer privacy. We are not supplying information on specific customers-just anonymous, aggregate information derived from usage on our network,” said a Cingular spokesperson. “This is a limited, non-commercial trial that is intended to test the accuracy of the technology solution being used by the state of Maryland to estimate traffic flow.”
Sprint Nextel defended the sale of cell-phone signal data as well.
“Sprint signed an agreement with AirSage in 2004, and has participated in trial road traffic studies using cell site information. In keeping with Sprint’s high standards of protecting customer information privacy, volumes of anonymous data are used in aggregate. To ensure privacy, no customer information or phone identification information (i.e. phone number, customer name, etc.) is shared in the process,” said a Sprint spokesperson.
Vendors agree that privacy is of ultimate importance.
“Privacy is No. 1. We don’t know who it is. We don’t want to know,” said Richard Mudge, vice president of Delcan-NET, from his Reston, Va., office.
