Big Data and Transport : understanding and assessing options - International Transport Forum / CPB / OECD

Big Data and Transport
Understanding and assessing
options
Corporate Partnership Board
Report
Corporate Partnership
Board
CPB

Understanding and assessing
options
Corporate Partnership Board
Report

International Transport Forum
The International Transport Forum at the OECD is an intergovernmental organisation with 54 member
countries. It acts as a think tank for transport policy and organises the Annual Summit of transport
ministers. ITF is the only global body that covers all transport modes.
ITF works for transport policies that improve peoples’ lives. Our mission is to foster a deeper understanding
of the role of transport in economic growth, environmental sustainability and social inclusion and to raise
the public profile of transport policy.
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of policy issues across all transport modes. We analyse trends, share knowledge and promote exchange
among transport decision makers and civil society.
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Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, China (People’s Republic of), Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark,
Estonia, Finland, France, Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hungary,
Iceland, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Korea, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Mexico,
Republic of Moldova, Montenegro, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russian
Federation, Serbia, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine, United
Kingdom and United States.
Disclaimer
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work has been provided by the ITF Corporate Partnership Board. The opinions expressed and arguments employed herein do not
necessarily reflect the official views of International Transport Forum member countries. This document and any map included
herein are without prejudice to the status of or sovereignty over any territory, to the delimitation of international frontiers and
boundaries and to the name of any territory, city or area.
www.internationaltransportforum.org

TABLE OF CONTENTS – 3
BIG DATA AND TRANSPORT: UNDERSTANDING AND ASSESSING OPTIONS - © OECD/ITF 2015
Table of contents
Executive summary ......................................................................................5
Introduction ................................................................................................7
1. Big Data, big changes ............................................................................9
2. The Big Data lifecycle...........................................................................11
Data acquisition and recording........................................................................................ 12
Data production: Digital vs. analogue.............................................................................. 12
Need for transparency and metadata on data provenance ............................................... 18
Data extraction, cleaning, annotation and storage .......................................................... 21
Integration, aggregation and fusion................................................................................ 22
Analysis, modelling and visualisation.............................................................................. 24
Data mining ..................................................................................................................24
Modelling ......................................................................................................................25
Visualisation and dissemination ........................................................................................26
3. Big Data, personal data and privacy.......................................................33
Personal data protection frameworks ............................................................................. 35
OECD personal data protection framework and guidelines ....................................................35
EU personal data protection frameworks............................................................................36
APEC and other Asian personal data protection frameworks..................................................38
United States’ personal data protection frameworks ............................................................39
Private-sector initiatives..................................................................................................40
“Privacy by Design” ........................................................................................................43
Privacy and location-based data ..................................................................................... 45
“You are where you’ve been” ...........................................................................................49
“We know where you’ve been” .........................................................................................51
“It’s hard to hide where you’ve been”................................................................................52
Anonymising location and trajectory data: four suggestions ........................................... 52
Bibliography ..............................................................................................59

4 – TABLE OF CONTENTS
Figures
1. Data size scale ................................................................................................................................10
2. Hype cycle for emerging technologies ................................................................................................11
3. Big Data collection and analysis lifecycle ............................................................................................12
4. Views of Waze, a community-based traffic and navigation application ....................................................18
5. Optimisation strategy for taxi sharing ................................................................................................26
6. Pick-up and drop-off points of all 170 million taxi trips over a year in New York City ................................27
7. Traffic incidents visualised using the Traffic Origins approach ...............................................................28
8. Analysis and visualisation of labour market access in Buenos Aires ........................................................29
9. Individuals’ time-space trajectories are powerful identifiers ..................................................................51

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY – 5
Executive summary
This report examines issues relating to the arrival of massive, often real-time, data sets whose exploitation
and amalgamation can lead to new policy-relevant insights and operational improvements for transport
services and activity. It is comprised of three parts. The first section gives an overview of the issues
examined. The second broadly characterises Big Data, and describes its production, sourcing and key
elements in Big Data analysis. The third section describes regulatory frameworks that govern data collection
and use, and focuses on issues related to data privacy for location data.
What we found
The volume and speeds at which data today is generated, processed and stored is unprecedented. It will
fundamentally alter the transport sector
The combination of low-cost and widespread sensing (much of it involving personal devices), the steep drop
in data storage costs and the availability of new data processing algorithms improves our ability to capture
and analyse more detailed representations of reality. Today these representations augment traditional
sources of transport data collection. In the future they will likely replace them.
Sensors and data storage/transmission capacity in vehicles provide new opportunities for enhanced safety
Work is underway to harmonise standards regarding these technologies and communications protocols in
order to accelerate safety improvements and lower implementation costs for conventional and, increasingly,
automated vehicles.
Multi-platform sensing technologies are now able to precisely locate and track people, vehicles and objects
Locating and tracking individuals at precisions up to a few centimetres in both outdoor and indoor
environments is feasible and will likely become standard – at least in urban areas – as location-sensing
technologies become omnipresent. The widespread penetration of mobile, especially smartphone,
technology makes this possible in ways not previously achievable. The location technologies deployed in
today’s mobile phones are increasinglybeing built into vehicles, enabling precise and persistent tracking.
The fusion of purposely-sensed, opportunistically-sensed and crowd-sourced data generates new knowledge
about transport activity and flows. It also creates unique privacy risks
When combined, these data reveal hitherto unsuspected or unobserved patterns in our daily lives. They can
be used to the benefit of both individuals and society. There is also the risk that insights derived from these
patterns may open new avenues for misuse and potential manipulation of individuals and their behaviour.
The knowledge derived from this fusion may not have been anticipated by data collectors at the time of
collection and the use of these insights may not have been anticipated or communicated to people who are
the object of that data.
Location and trajectory data is inherently personal in nature and difficult to anonymise effectively
Tracking and co-locating people with other people and places exposes a daily pattern of activity and
relationships that serve as powerful quasi-identifiers. Trajectories are as unique as fingerprints and though
many techniques exist to de-identify this data, doing so effectively, while retaining sufficient detail for
useful analysis, is not easy.
Data protection policies are lagging behind new modes of data collection and uses. This is especially true for
location data
Rules governing the collection and use of personal data (e.g. data that cannot be de-identified) are
outdated. Data is now collected in ways that were not anticipated by regulations, and authorities have not
accounted for the new knowledge that emerges from data fusion. A split has emerged between those who

6 – EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
would seek to retain prior notification and consent frameworks for data collection and those who would
abandon these in order to focus only on specifying allowable uses of that data.
Policy insights
Road safety improvements can be accelerated through the specification and harmonisation of a limited set
of safety-related vehicle data elements
Technologies like E-call, E-911 and vehicle data black boxes provide post-crash data well suited for
improving emergency services and forensic investigations. Much more vehicle-related data is available and,
if shared in a common format, could enhance road safety. Further work is needed to identify a core set of
safety-related data elements to be publicly shared and to ensure the encryption protocols necessary to
secure data that could compromise privacy.
Transport authorities will need to audit the data they use in order to understand what it says (and what it
does not say) and how it can best be used
Big Data in transport is not immune from small data problems – especially those relating to statistical
validity, bias and incorrectly imputed causality. Transport authorities will need to ensure an adequate level
of data literacy for handling new streams of data and novel data types. Ensuring robust and persistent
metadata with harmonised provenance will facilitate data usability audits. Big Data is often not clean. Lack
of data quality may mean significant upfront costs to render the data useable. This should be factored into
decision making processes.
More effective protection of location data will have to be designed upfront into technologies, algorithms and
processes
Adapting data protection frameworks to increasingly pervasive and precise location data is difficult, largely
because data privacy has not been incorporated as a design element from the outset. Both voluntary and
regulatory initiatives should employ a “Privacy by Design” approach which ensures that strong data
protection and controls are front-loaded into data collection processes. Technological advances including the
arrival of system-on-a-chip sensors can aid this by allowing on-the-fly data encryption. Other advances
could include protocols allowing for citizens to control and allocate rights regarding their data. Failing to
ensure strong privacy protection may result in a regulatory backlash against the collection and processing
of location data. This could hamper innovation, reduce consumer welfare and curb the social and economic
benefits the use of such data delivers.
New models of public-private partnership involving data-sharing may be necessary to leverage all the
benefits of Big Data
An increasing amount of the actionable data pertaining to road safety, traffic management and travel
behaviour is held by the private sector. Yet public authorities are still, and will likely continue to be,
mandated to provide essential services. Innovative data-sharing partnerships between the public and
private sectors may need to go beyond today’s simple supplier-client relationship. These new arrangements
should not obviate the need for market power tests, cost-benefit assessment and public utility objectives.
Data visualisation will play an increasingly important role in policy dialogue
Effective data visualisations can quickly communicate key aspects of data analysis and reveal new patterns
to decision makers and the public. Public agencies will need to be able to handle the visual language of data
as effectively as they handle written and spreadsheet-based analysis.

INTRODUCTION – 7
Introduction
This report was written on the basis of desk research and expert input and interviews among practitioners
and researchers from both the public and private sectors. It investigates how mobility-related data
generation, collection and use are rapidly evolving, reviews existing data protection frameworks and
highlights several key strategic areas where data privacy will have to be improved if long-term innovation
benefits are to be realised.
The principal author of this report was Philippe Crist of the International Transport Forum with substantial
inputs provided by Emma Greer and Carlo Ratti of Carlo Ratti Associati, Paulo Humanes of PTV AG and
Gilbert Konzett, Jasja Tijink, Diego Figuero and Richard Lax, all of Kapsch TrafficCom. The report benefitted
from valuable inputs provided by José Viegas and Antigone Lykotrafiti. The project was coordinated by
Philippe Crist and Sharon Masterson of the International Transport Forum.

Big Data and Transport : understanding and assessing options - International Transport Forum / CPB / OECD

1. BIG DATA, BIG CHANGES – 9
1.Big Data, big changes
Never before has so much timely information about events, people and objects been so widely and quickly
available. One recent estimate puts the total size of the “digital universe” – comprised of digital content
spanning from photographs, movies and surveillance video feeds, data produced and sent by sensors and
connected devices, internet content, email, sms, audio streams to phone call metadata – at 4.4 zettabytes
(see Figure 1) in 2013. Doubling every two months, the size of the digital universe is projected to grow to
44 zettabytes in 2020 (IDC, 2014). For reference, the total amount of visual information conveyed by the
eyes to the brains of the entire global population in 2013 amounted to approximately 1 zettabyte per day.
These estimates represent a staggering amount of data, and a significant portion relates to events and
people (credit card and payment transactions, surveillance video, vehicle sensor outputs, Wi-Fi access
signals, volunteered text and imagery on social networks). This datacan be used to better understand,
anticipate or manipulate human behaviour.
The acceleration in both the growth and velocity of exploitable and often open data will trigger significant
and disruptive change across a number of sectors – including transport. Compelling cases have been made
for the value of Big Data analytics for urban planning (via the convergence of high definition geographic
data with information regarding the observed or interpreted use of urban space by citizens), intelligent
transport (via visualisation and analysis of the real-time usage of transport networks) and safety (via the
processing of real-time data regarding vehicle operation and the surrounding environment to avoid or
minimise potentially dangerous conflicts). However, it is not clear that authorities and regulation within and
outside of the transport sector have kept pace with the proliferation of new, or newly available, data. Just
as a better understanding of how mobility-related data can help resolve policy challenges relating to
congestion and safety, for example, failure to account for the changing nature of data collection, use and
access can also lead to negative outcomes - in particular regarding an unintended and unwanted erosion of
privacy rights.
To be clear, the collection and exploitation of large data sets – so-called “Big Data”– is not new and is not
linked to a single technological change. Rather, what has occurred is the confluence of new data collection
mechanisms based on ubiquitous digital devices, greatly enhanced storage capacity and computing power
as well as enhanced sensing and communication technologies. These technologiesenable near real-time use
and transmission of massive amounts of data.
Some of these data streams are purpose-built to address well-defined questions and to resolve specific
tasks. For instance data from automatic toll payment transponders broadcast data necessary for the
processing and secure payment of road tolls. However, much of the potential value (or damage) from data
lies in its combinatory use with other data sources. These data need not be well-defined or purpose-tied –
and often are not. They are more akin to “digital dust” that lingers from our interactions with any number
of computing systems and digital infrastructure and services.
When combined, these data reveal hitherto unsuspected or unobserved patterns in our daily lives which can
be used to benefit both individuals and society. There is also the risk that insights derived from these
patterns may open up new avenues for misuse of data and potential manipulation of individuals and their
behaviour. Big Data is seen as both an opportunity and a challenge. This is especially true for the
management and governance of transport-related data.
Transport is a complex activity but at its most basic expression it is simply about connecting locations with
flows. These locations may be proximate, well-connected and displaying high levels of access – as in many
urban areas – or not. The flows between these locations may concern people or goods and may involve any
number of vehicle types – or not, as in the case of walking.

10 – 1. BIG DATA, BIG CHANGES
Resolving the location-flow equation requires delivering and managing the use of infrastructure assets such
as roads, bridges, tracks, airports, ports, bus stations and cycle paths – but it may also involve decisions
regarding where to site activities so that the need to move is obviated. All of these decisions require
information – a lot of information – regarding places, people and activities. Big Data holds much promise
for improving the planning and management of transport activity by radically increasing the amount or
near-real-time availability of mobility-related data. Likewise, access to more detailed and actionable data
regarding the operation of vehicles and of the environment in which they operate holds much promise for
improving the safety of transport.
These three fields – operations, planning and safety – are areas where authorities must critically evaluate
where and how new, or newly available data and data-related insights, can improve transport policy.
Figure 1. Data size scale
Source: Nokia HERE, Forbes, Idealab, GE, ITF calculations.
1 byte
Kilobyte
~1000 (103) bytes
Megabyte
~1000000 (106) bytes
Gigabyte
~1000000000 (109) bytes
Terabyte
~1000000000000 (1012) bytes
Petabyte
~1000000000000000 (1015) bytes
Exabyte
~1000000000000000000 (1018) bytes
Zettabyte
~1000000000000000000000 (1021) bytes
Yottabyte
~1000000000000000000000000 (1024) bytes
1 zettabyte: Total amount of visual
information conveyed from the eyes to the
brains of all humans per day in 2013.
4.4 zettabytes: Estimated size of the digital
universe in 2013
44 zettabytes: Projected size of the digital
universe in 2020
30 terabytes: data produced by Boeing 777
on a transatlantic trip
60 gigabytes: data gathered per hour by
Google’s self-driving car
25 gigabytes: data analysed per hour by
Ford’s Ford Fusion Energi plug-in hybrid
140 gigabytes: data gathered per day by
Nokia HERE mapping car
Several petabytes: traffic data stored by
INRIX to produce traffic analysis for e.g.
Google traffic

2. THE BIG DATA LIFECYCLE – 11
2.The Big Data lifecycle
Big Data broadly refers to extremely large data sets now able to be acquired, stored and interpreted
through modern technology. While no broadly agreed definition exists for big data, it is commonly
understood to qualify datasets too large to be contained or processed using the resources of a typical
personal computer or the analytical capacity of commonly used spreadsheet applications.
Volume is only one attribute of Big Data. Other significant attributes include velocity (the speed at which
data is collected and processed) and variety (the range of structured and unstructured elements that
comprise the data sets). Overall, volume, velocity and variety are typically used to differentiate Big Data
from other data. However, it is important to understand that these are purely descriptive terms. They do
not capture the fundamental changes that have occurred in recent years that have given rise to such large
and exploitable data sets.
Big Data – in transport and elsewhere – has emerged from the convergence of rapidly decreasing costs for
collecting, storing and processing, and then disseminating data. Decreasing costs for sensors has led to a
proliferation of sensing platforms transforming large swathes of the analogue world into digitally processed
signals. Decreasing data storage costs have allowed the retention of data that had previously been
discarded. As noted by science historian George Dyson “Big Data is what happened when the cost of storing
information became less than the cost of making the decision to throw it away." (Dyson, 2013)
Figure 2. Hype cycle for emerging technologies (2013)
Source: Gartner Research.
Bioacoustic Sensing
Smart Dust
Quantum computing
Quantified Self
3D Bioprinting
Brain-computer interface
Human Augmentation
Volumetric and Holographic Displays
Electrovibration
Affective Computing
Prescriptive Analytics
Autonomous Vehicles
Biochips
Neurobusiness
3D Scanners
Mobile Robots
Speech-to-Speech Translation
Internet of Things
Natural-Language Question-Answering
Big Dataexpectations
Consumer 3D Printing
Gamefication Wearable User Interfaces
Complex Event Processing
Content Analytics
In-Memory Database Management Systems
Virtual Assistants
Augmented Reality
Machine-to-Machine Communication Services
Mobile Health Monitoring
Near Field Contact Tech.
Mesh Networks: Sensor
Cloud Computing
Virtual Reality In-Memory Analytics
Gesture Control
Activity Streams
Enterprise 3D Printing
BiometricAuthentication Methods
Consumer Telematics
Location Intelligence
Speech Recognition
Predictive Analytics
As of July 2013
Innovation Trigger
Peak of Inflated
Expectations
Trough of
Disillusionment
Slope of Enlightenment
Plateau of
Productivity
timePlateau will be reached in:
Less than 2 years 2-5 years 5-10 years More than 10 years

12 – 2. THE BIG DATA LIFECYCLE
At the same time the advent of inexpensive, often open-source analytical software has democratised access
to cost-effective and near real-time processing and analysis of large, high-velocity and high variance data
sets (Asslett, 2013).
As a term, Big Data is relatively recent. Yet it has already generated considerable interest and discussion,
including in the field of transport. While strong interest is generally seen as a positive the enthusiasim or
“hype” for a new technology can go too far and lead to inflated expectations. Big Data is nearing the apex
of such a “hype” curve (Figure 2) and it remains to be seen how relevant, robust and perennial a concept it
proves to be for mobility-related data.
Big Data is not a singular construct; rather, it is a process spanning data acquisition, processing and
interpretation (see Figure 3). This lifecycle of Big Data is described in the following sections.
Data acquisition and recording
People increasingly leave a digital trace wherever they go (both voluntarily and involuntarily). The
technology utilized in each phone call, text message, email, social media post, online search, and credit
card purchase and many other electronic transactions reports on the user’s location at a given point in time.
This data is then relayed to the central servers of the service providers that enable these actions. When
cross-referenced with the geographical terrain, data harnessed at this scale offers a means of
understanding, and responding to, the urban dynamics of the city in real-time. Making sense of this data,
especially for policy, requires familiarity with the technical aspects of data production methods as well as an
understanding of how, or from whom, the data is sourced. We address these issues in the following
sections.
Figure 3. Big Data collection and analysis lifecycle
Data production: Digital vs. analogue
In general terms, data may be either be “born digital” or “born analogue”. (PCAST, 2014) “Born digital”
data is created by users or by a computing device specifically for use in a machine processing environment.
Examples of “born digital” data include (PCAST, 2014):
Acquisition
Recording
Extracting
Cleaning
Annotation
Storage
Integration
Aggregation
Representation
Visualisation
Analysis
Modeling
Interpretation
Reinterpretation
Dissemination
Deletion
Human input
Interpretation
Heterogeneity
Volatility
Scale
Velocity, timeliness
Traceability, privacy
ValueRepresentativeness

 Global Positioning System (GPS) or other geo-localised spatial data stamps.
 Time stamps and process logs.
 Metadata regarding device identity, status and location used by mobile devices to stay connected
to various networks (GSM, Wi-Fi, etc).
 Data produced by devices, vehicles and networked objects.
 Public transport card tap-ins or swipes and other data associated with portal access (badge, key cards,
RFID tags) or cordon passage (e.g. toll roads, congestion charging systems, etc).
 Commercial transaction data (credit card use and transaction records, bar-code and RFID tag reading,
etc.).
 Emails and SMS, metadata relating to phone calls.
“Born digital” data is produced by design to address one or a series of specific needs. Efficiency
considerations has meant that only the specific data required for a process was generated and retained, in
order to avoid straining storage and processing capacicity or inflating costs. However, the drop in
processing and storage costs effectively means that over-collection of data (beyond the stated initial
purpose for data collection) is easily possible and has a near zero real cost.
“Born analogue” data is data that arises from an imprint of a physical phenomenon (light, sound, motion,
presence of a chemical or biological compound, magnetic impedance, etc) upon a sensing device, and its
subsequent conversion into a digital signal. Sensors may include cameras, microphones, magnetic field
detecting devices, heart rate monitors, accelerometers, thermal sensors, etc. Costs for sensors have
decreased sharply contributing to a rapidly pervasive sensing environment.
Examples of “born analogue” data include:
 Video streams from surveillance, in-vehicle, roadside or other cameras.
 Audio content of voice phone calls, ambient audio from video cameras or microphone networks.
 Motion/inertia (accelerometers, ultrasonic sensors), heading (compass), temperature, infrared
radiation, electromagnetic fields, air pressure etc.
 Data relating to heartrate, respiration, gait, and other physical and health parameters.
 Electromagnetic or light (laser) reflectance of objects (e.g. synthetic aperture radar –SAR or laser-
based LIDAR systems).
With the proliferation of sensors some may suggest “born analogue” data is rapidly expanding to
encompass all potential observations, both now and into the future. However, two filtering mechanisms
operate at the initial stage of data collection that limit the scope of data acquired. The first filter is the
design specifications (and therefore limitations) imposed on any sensor or recording device. For example,
due to their design specifications a heat sensor will not record audio signals while an accelerometer will not
record geographic coordinates. Nevertheless, the ability to infer one phenomenon from the observation of
another is constantly evolving. For instance, research into the electromagnetic interference (which road
authorities have tried to shield roadside data transmission cables from) has shown that the data produced
by the interference can be used to infer vehicle movements and provide traffic counts.
The second operative filter relates to the observation rate of sensed or monitored events versus the rate of
data retention and transmission. For instance, engine sensors in a commercial aircraft may process up to
10 terabytes of data per 30 minutes of flying time but most of this data is discarded as soon as it is used.
Rates of data retention are orders of magnitude lower and the amount of data transmitted during flight
even lower still. Much sensed or generated data is rapidly discarded and what is left may be filtered and
compressed before being treated and used. However, the potential value of sensed data may not be
recognised at the system design phase. There is a need to ensure filters or compression algorithms do not
discard potentially useful information.

Filtering and compression-linked data loss is becoming less of an issue with the advent of lower cost data
storage and transmission technologies, coupled with state-of-the-art database platforms such as Hadoop
(see Box 1 on Big Data core technologies). These changes, in addition to growing sophistication of, and
decreased costs for, dual sensor-computing devices, increase the relevance of retained data. Sharply
dropping sensor costs and size, improved sensor performance, lower data storage costs and improved
relevance of retained data all contribute to the large-scale increase of exploitable data. However, as noted
by the Community Computing Consortium, challenges remain:
“One challenge is to define these filters in such a way that they do not discard useful information. For
example, suppose one sensor reading differs substantially from the rest: it is likely to be due to the
sensor being faulty, but how can we be sure that it is not an artefact that deserves attention? In
addition, the data collected by these sensors most often are spatially and temporally correlated (e.g.,
traffic sensors on the same road segment). We need research in the science of data reduction that can
intelligently process this raw data to a size that its users can handle while not missing the needle in
the haystack. Furthermore, we require “on-line” analysis techniques that can process such streaming
data on the fly, since we cannot afford to store first and reduce afterward.” (Community Research
Association, 2012)
In general, the literature on Big Data classifies sources under three broad categories: opportunistic sensing,
purposely sensing and crowdsensing. Opportunistic sensing leverages data running on existing systems,
such as a telecommunication network, but can be used to better understand mobility. In other terms, data
is collected for one purpose and used for another. This approach to data collection is made possible largely
by widespread use of mobile phones (ITU, 2014) – citizens replace the need for purpose-built sensors,
contributing real-time data through their portable devices. Other typical data providers include credit card
companies recording user transaction and taxi fleets reporting vehicle GPS.
The potential of opportunistic sensing is furthered by recent, and forecasted, increases in the sample size,
reporting frequency and processing power of existing networks. Previously, mobile phones generated data
only when calls were made. Today, with the transition to smart phones, time and location is communicated
to service providers every time a text or email is sent, a photo is uploaded or on-line purchase is made. By
2020, more than 70% of mobile phones are expected to have GPS capability. (McKinsey Global Institute,
2011)
Mozilla, the free software community which produces the Firefox web browser in partnership with Chinese
chip maker Spreadtrum, has prototyped a low-cost smartphone device aimed at the developing world for
USD 25. (Spreadtrum, 2013) The smartphone will be able to run simple apps and make use of mobile
Internet, empowering citizens across social classes with more data producing and receiving capabilities.
Furthermore, advancements in telecommunication technologies and data connectivity will lead to better
access to real-time updates. When triangulated with signals from several towers, callers can be located
within a few dozen metres. (European Commission, 2011)
Of the data types associated with opportunistic sensing, McKinsey’s 2011 report on Big Data emphasises
the transformative potential of location data from mobile phones for transportation applications. The
traditional means of studying city dynamics, such as census surveys and vehicle counting, are both time-
consuming and expensive. Meanwhile, mobile phone carriers are routinely collecting location data on all
active users. This offers a valuable means by which to monitor activity patterns frequently, cheaply and at
an unprecedented scale. (Becker, et al., 2011) Call Detail Records (CDRs) identify the approximate location
of the caller and receiver at the time of the call through the cell towers carrying their phone signals. Strung
together over an extended period of time, each recorded location contributes to an observed flow of people
between different geographical regions, whose precision is tied to frequency of mobile phone use. More
accurate still, data from smartphones equipped with GPS and Wi-Fi are able to locate the user within five
meters.

In contrast to opportunistic sensing, purposely-sensed data sets are derived from ad hoc sensor networks
configured to study a specific phenomenon. Due to advances in microelectronics sensors and computation
are becoming increasingly affordable and widely distributed, a phenomenon often referred to as “smart
dust”. Hence, networks of remote sensing agents can now be embedded in the city fabric to extract large
amounts of information. This data is channeled to central control stations where it is aggregated, analysed
and used to make decisions on how the monitored terrain should be regulated and actuated. (Ratti &
Nabian, 2010) Here, the resulting data sets tend to be more uniform, and the stated use and actual end-
use scenarios are better aligned to decode various flows within the city.
Transportation systems that make use of information from cameras and microcontrollers to optimise public
transit, monitor the environment and run security applications are known as intelligent transportation
systems (ITS). In general, information for ITS is extracted from two types of customised sensor networks
fixed sensor agents and dynamic probes, e.g. mobile sensors. (Calabrese, et al., 2011)
Box 1. Big Data core technologies
Big Data draws on a range of technologies and system architectures that are designed to extract social or
economic value from high velocity, large scale and extremely diverse and heterogeneous data streams.
(Cavoukian & Jones, 2012) At their core are four interlinked technological developments.
Ubiquitous data logging and sensor platforms
Extensive software event logging (and storage) and the deployment of millions of sensing devices enable the
real-time production of petabytes of data globally.
Real-time in-stream data analysis
Sophisticated algorithms and distributed computing capacity (often hard-wired to sensor platforms) enable the
real-time parsing and analysis of data as it is produced. In-memory analysis is especially useful for extracting
relevant data from unstructured analogue video or audio streams (see below).
New analytic frameworks
New techniques have emerged that allow efficient processing of very large data sets within the constraints of
available runtime computing capacity. Many of these techniques have been released under open-source
licenses free of commercial rights. This has greatly accelerated their uptake. Map-reduce work processes (such
as Hadoop or its derivatives) leverage parallel processing by breaking up large and complex semi-structured
and unstructured data sets into more manageable subsets. They then allocate coordinated processing tasks to
multiple distributed servers. These algorithms are fully scalable and are not bound by having to formalise
database relationships ahead of storage and analysis. They can be applied to directly to the data, irrespective
of size, format and complexity. Nonetheless, they may not be sufficiently reactive to use in the context of in-
stream data analysis. Other approaches have emerged that are specifically geared to the analysis real-time
streaming data and involve some form of in-memory processing (that is, analysis occurs without data storage).
Advances in data storage
Dropping data storage costs have increased the ratio of retained to generated data. This data includes
information that, in the past, had seemed insignificant or trivial (e.g. “digital dust”) and was therefore
discarded. However, when analysed by sophisticated algorithms or merged with other sources of contextual
data, “digital dust” may provide important new insights. This data is increasingly being stored remotely (away
from the systems that produce it) in data centres that may even be in another jurisdiction. Related to the
development of remote data centres is the emergence of “cloud” computing capacity that can be used to
analyse large and real-time data sets. The “cloud” refers to remote data storage centres as well as the suite of
data transfer and networking protocols that allow access to and analysis of distributed data as if it were located
on a single server. Not only does “cloud computing” deliver economies of scale in relation to data storage,
management and support costs, it also opens up new possibilities for ad-hoc and customisable access to
computing capacity on public cloud-based platforms (e.g. Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud Platform, etc.)

In fixed sensor agents, location coordinates are linked to the identification code of the sensor transmitting
the data. Mobile sensors, on the other hand, include updated location coordinates with each transmission.
Both sensor types can be configured to transmit information at predefined intervals, or to respond to
requests for data from the central server. (Ratti & Nabian, 2010)
Fixed sensors are permanently installed and monitor the real-time dynamics of the surrounding terrain,
such as the speed at which vehicles are travelling, distance between vehicles, road surface conditions and
CO2 emissions from car exhausts. They can be hard-wired or wireless and range from roadside traffic
cameras connected with optical fibres buried underground, to sensors that operate over radar, ultrasound,
or infrared (e.g. tyre overheating). Sensors that are inductive, piezoelectric, or magnetic can be laid under
the road. For example, loop detectors embedded in the pavement report on traffic flow through
perturbations in circuit conductivity caused by vehicles passing overhead. In each case, sensors are
equipped with a control unit, battery system, solar panel and transmission system.
Location-based data accounts for most of the information derived from sensors capable of probing the
terrain. The most common example being Global Positioning System (GPS) receivers. GPS-enabled vehicles
periodically report their position and the time the message was transmitted. GPS units derive velocity and
direction of movement from two or more position measurements. The receivers use a control unit and
transmission system to relay this information to a central server via text message or transmission of data
packets. Once collected, GPS data needs to be carefully processed to account for communication delays,
and extract accurate timestamps for each location reading.
Both fixed sensors and GPS receivers are limited by the considerable investment required to embed and
maintain the sensing agents. In order to achieve sufficient sensing capability, these sensors must be
deployed on mass. In the case of GPS receivers, their ability to accurately estimate traffic conditions is tied
to the density of vehicles reporting on a given area. As the number of probes increase, transmission cost to
the central system can become high. The transmission costs associated with wired fixed sensors are
especially high given they must be strung together as part of a larger network in order to produce a
complete view of mobility conditions in a city, and the cable infrastructure required to connect each one
with the central collecting point is expensive.
The constraints outlined above have deterred many municipalities from investing in sufficient monitoring
systems required to process purposely-sensed information at the city scale. This is particularly true for
large urban areas consisting primarily of smaller streets. Instead, their application is often limited to select
locations such as highways, major urban corridors and large intersections. (Calabrese, et al., 2011) One
notable exception to this trend is the City of Rio de Janeiro (see Box 2).
The Rio de Janeiro Operations Centre uses mobile application to warn citizens about heavy rain, strong
wind, fog, energy shortages, traffic signal malfunctions, mudslides, fire, smoke and points of flooding It also
receives information from the public. On an average day, Rio’s transportat planners receive aggregated
views from 110 000 drivers and reports on 60 000 traffic incidents. Since 2013, Rio de Janeiro has been the
first city in the world to collect real-time data both from drivers who use Google’s navigation application
Waze, and pedestrians who use the public transportation app Moovit. The crowd-sourced data is overlaid
with real-time information from various sensors and cameras. In the future, the city plans to start
monitoring how cyclists move around the city using cycling app Strava. (Forbes, 2014b)
Google Waze crunches a continuous stream of traffic data from its community to propose what it recognises
as the fastest route to the destination. Like TomTom or Google Maps, the app provides users with step-by-
step directions to the selected destination. Waze’s map differs in its ability to integrate user-generated
content. Individuals submit incident reports that mark the precise location of the accident, traffic jam and
any other driving hazard. As with many crowd-sourced apps, its success depends on the volume of users;
and hence, is more reliable in dense urban areas than in rural ones.

Box 2. Rio de Janeiro Municipal Operations Centre
After a series of floods and mudslides claimed the lives of 72 people in April 2010, city officials recognised
the need to overhaul city operations more significantly in preparation for the 2014 World Cup and Olympics
in 2016. (United States Environmental Protection Agency, 2014) In collaboration with IBM, the City of Rio de
Janeiro launched the Rio de Janeiro Operations Centre (ROC) in 2010 with the initial aim of preventing deaths
from annual floods. This centre was later expanded to include all emergency response situations in Rio de
Janeiro.
In traditional applications of top-down sensor networks, data from each department operates in isolation.
However, ROC’s approach to information exchange is based on the understanding that overall communication
channels are essential to getting the right data to the right place and can make all the difference in an effective
response to an emergency situation. The information-sharing platform they created enables them to tap into
various departments and agencies, and look for patterns across diverse data sets to better coordinate
resources during a crisis.
The centrally located facility surveys 560 cameras around the city and another 350 from private sector utility
concessionaires and public sector authorities (Centro de Operações da Prefeitura do Rio de Janeiro, 2014). The
incoming feeds are aggregated on a single server and displayed across a 80-square meter (861 square feet)
wall of tiled screens – a smart map comprised of 120 layers of information updated in real-time such as GPS
tracking of buses, city officials and local traffic. With over 400 employees working in shifts 24 hours per day,
seven days a week ROC performs a variety of functions aimed at improving the efficiency, safety, and
effectiveness of relevant government agencies in the city. While much of the attention paid to the centre
focuses on emergency monitoring and response, especially related to weather, a significant portion of the work
undertaken relates to ensuring the smooth functioning of day-to-day operations like transport.or example,
through the centre, Companhia Municipal de Limpeza Urbana (municipal waste corporation) can monitor where
its trucks are and better sequence trash collection, minimising fuel consumption and improving waste
management services (US Environmental Protection Agency, 2014).
IBM has created similar data centres elsewhere in the world for single agencies (such as crime centres for New
York and Madrid, and a congestion fee system for Stockholm) but ROC is the first application of a citywide
system to integrate all stages of crisis management from prediction, mitigation and preparation, to immediate
response. In Rio de Janeiro, the centre gathers data from 30 government departments and public agencies –
water, electricity, gas, trash collection and sanitation, weather and traffic monitoring – in real-time through
fixed sensors, video cameras and GPS devices. Data fusion software collates this data using algorithms to
identify patterns and trends, including where incidents are most likely. (Open Data Research Network, 2014)
In a statement on the use of sensor-based systems to correlate situational events with historical data at their
Intelligent Operations Centre for Smarter Cities, IBM’s Director of Public Safety explained “The aim is to help
cities of all sizes use analytics more effectively to make intelligent decisions based on better quality and
timelier information. City managers can access information that crosses boundaries, so they’re not focusing on
a problem within a single domain. They can start to think about how one agency’s response to an event affects
other agencies”. (Yasin, 2011) In every city, the complete story cannot be told by traffic figures and
meteorological data alone. To fully assess a crisis situation, the voice of the people must be heard. Each
urbanite can be thought of as a human sensor, capable of reporting on their experience of the city through
content sharing platforms such as Flickr, Twitter, Facebook or Wikipedia. (Ratti & Nabian, 2010) These actions
offer a unique view on how people navigate their environment, bringing clarity to points of attraction or
spontaneous migrations. This approach describes the third data source known as crowdsensing.

Figure 4. Views of Waze, a community-based traffic and navigation application
(interface showing the reported incidents and traffic suggestions)

Source: Google Play.
Need for transparency and metadata on data provenance
Transparency regarding the nature of data and the conditions under which it was collected is crucial for
data-driven transport policy making. In this respect, the initial recording and subsequent preservation of
metadata plays an essential role in enabling data interpretation and re-interpretation. This metadata may
include information on data structure, the context in which it was collected and how it was generated (e.g.
its provenance). For sensor-based data, provenance data is especially important as the type of sensor
platform may affect the representativeness of the data produced (see Box 3 on current shortcomings in Big
Data analytics).
For instance, if a traffic data source is a network of embedded loop detectors, it becomes important to
account for the sometimes significant portion of detectors that may be offline or that consistently give
implausible and possibly incorrect readings. Likewise, accounting for smartphone or app penetration rates
across demographic segments becomes important when analysing smartphone or app-sourced data for
designing public transport services. Ensuring a non-degradable provenance metadata is especially
important for fused data sets whose analysis will depend on understanding the nature of all of the
component data streams. However, the more detailed the provenance metadata (e.g. down to a single
identifiable sensor) the more difficult it becomes to manage privacy issues.
Box 3. Current shortcomings in Big Data analytics
Proponents of Big Data-driven analysis have predicted that:
“In the next two decades, we will be able to predict huge areas of the future with far greater
accuracy than ever before in human history, including events long thought to be beyond the
realm of human inference. The rate by which we can extrapolate meaningful patterns from the
data of the present is quickening as rapidly as is the spread of the Internet because the two are
inexorably linked. The Internet is turning prediction into an equation… as sensors, cameras, and
microphones constitute one way for computer systems to collect information about their—and
our—shared environment, these systems are developing perceptions that far exceed our own.”
(Tucker, 2014)

Massive and near real-time data sets, often based on ubiquitous sensing, are so large that they may seem to
mimic reality. Just knowing there is a link between two or more observable variables and an outcome may be
sufficient to predict the frequency of that outcome in the future. All that is needed is an algorithm that
consistently detects patterns in the data. In this view of Big Data analytics the need for classic statistical tests
regarding bias and validity or explanatory theories and models would be eliminated. The data could already be
assumed to be an accurate representation of reality. However, this is an overly reductive viewpoint.
Furthermore, some early successes in Big Data analysis based on this assumption have failed to provide robust
predictive results over the long term.
Observers have pointed out that “there are a lot of small data problems that occur in Big Data” (Harford, 2014)
and that a theory-free approach to analysing Big Data does not make these go away – in fact, it makes them
worse. Big Data has not emancipated analysts and policy makers from the strictures of statistical rigor since Big
Data is not only prone to many of the same errors and biases in smaller data sets, it also creates new ones.
Causality, correlation and multiple correlations
Big Data analytics are well suited to the discovery of correlations that were not obvious, or even visible, in the
data initially. This is where “letting the data speak” is the most effective method of providing new insights.
Correlation and causation are two different things and though correlative variables may reveal the possibility of
a causal relationship in the data, they do not explain which correlations are meaningful or predictive. For
example, combining low granularity hospital data with geo-localised patient data, traffic flow data and digital
maps may reveal that living close to busy urban roads correlates with early mortality. A logical assumption
would be that this was due to exposure to air and noise pollution. However, property values adjacent to busy
urban roadways may be low and the population living in these areas may have low incomes. These two
variables may correlate closely with a number of risk factors (diet, exercise, smoking) that contribute to early
mortality. Without a more detailed understanding of the causes of death, authorities may find that policy efforts
to reduce pollution (or traffic) may not necessarily reduce early mortality along these corridors. Furthermore,
Big Data analytics may amplify the importance of spurious correlations due to the extremely large volumes of
data processed. While Big Data analytics are suited to “letting the data speak”, understanding what exactly is
being said calls for human interpretation.
Even if a correlation may prove to be robust over a given period, Big Data analytics alone cannot provide
insight into what might cause the correlation to break down – nor what pattern may emerge in its place. This is
a second critique of Big Data-led analytics – they can often be helpful in examining fairly common occurrences
but have difficulty in handling less common or outlying events.
Differential smartphone penetration bias in Washington, DC
(visualised through geo-referenced tweets)
Source: https://www.mapBox.com/blog/visualising-3-billion-tweets/

Bias and representativeness
A third critique of Big Data analytics is that the existence of massive data sets does not eradicate traditional
statistical traps – especially those of sample bias and sample error.
Claims relating to the ubiquity of sensor networks and other sources of Big Data are often exaggerated or
ignore specific and consistent sources of bias that may be relevant for policy analysis. For example, use of
smartphone-sourced location data may be subject to biases that result not only from differential rates of
smartphone penetration amongst different demographic groups (e.g. the very young and the old, high income
vs. low income) but also to differential rates of penetration of operating systems amongst the population of
smartphone owners.
Analysis of geo-tagged tweets reveals a stark segregation between iPhone and Android users in many locales
(as in illustrated in Figure of Washington, DC). These differences may correlate to income or race (or both) and
may have real consequences when considering the use of smartphone-sourced location data. An iPhone-only
app, for instance, that provides authorities with automatic pothole detection reports based on signals from the
phone’s accelerometer and other sensors would direct authorities to repair potholes only in those areas with
high levels of iPhone ownership. In the case of Washington, this would ignore nearly half of the city’s roads.
In another example, biases may emerge from volunteered location data due to specific characteristics of app-
users versus the general population. Strava, for instance, is an app that started as a way for cyclists and
runners to compete against each other’s times on defined segments. It has amassed a very large data set of
geo-localised tracks matched with user profiles (77.7 million bicycle rides, 19.7 million runs, 220 billion GPS
data points) around the world based on self-reporting by app users. It markets this data (under the Strava
Metro product) to planners and city authorities to help shape urban transport policy. Strava claims a 40% share
of commuting routes in its data. However, it seems reasonable to expect, given the app’s stated purpose, that a
bias in favour of recreational cyclists’ and runners’ route preferences may exist, though Strava claims a 40%
share of commuting routes in its data. A potential secondary bias may also emerge due to the type of bicycle
commuter most likely to use the Strava app (e.g. more competitive, longer-distance commuters).
Potential representativity bias: Copenhagen cycling
Source: engineering.strava.com

Data extraction, cleaning, annotation and storage
Beyond questions of availability and collection costs, an important factor to consider when selecting a data
source is its fitness for analysis. Data analytics refers to all the ways in which information is extracted from
a given data set. Once parsed into relevant fields (e.g. origin and destination time, longitude and latitude),
a series of operations can be performed to clean, transform and model the data in pursuit of meaningful
conclusions.
A range of techniques and tools have been developed, or adapted, to aggregate, manipulate and visualise
Big Data. These draw on expertise from a number of fields including statistics, computer science, applied
mathematics and economics. This both adds to the challenge of making Big Data accessible and highlights
the need for a multidisciplinary approach.
Within the context of transportation planning, spatial analytics typically extract the topological, geometric,
or geographic properties encoded in a data set. Across the various case studies related to mobility, the
techniques for data analysis can be grouped into, but are not limited to, the following categories (McKinsey
Global Institute, 2011):
 Data fusion: techniques to consolidate data produced by multiple sources, such as location data
produced by mobile phones and GPS-enabled vehicles.
 Data mining: techniques to extract patterns from large data sets, such as the relationships between
discrete nodes in a transportation network.
 Optimisation: techniques to reorganise complex systems and processes to improve their performance
according to one or more parameters, such as travel time or fuel efficiency.
 Visualisation: techniques used for generating images, diagrams, or animations to communicate the
results of data analysis, such as traffic maps. Visualisation techniques are used both during and after
data analytics to make sense of the information.
An important factor to consider when selecting a data source is the scope and quality of the resulting data
set. Data extracted from a single source is generally considered clean and precise. However, meaningful
analysis of a single source depends largely on the generating system’s ability to serve as a proxy for the
phenomenon of interest. The reality is that data is often “messy”, in that it is heterogeneous, “dirty”
(includes incorrect, mislabelled, missing or potentially spurious data) and, in its native format, is
incompatible with other data sources. Part of the challenge lies in the fact that some data may be highly
structured (for example, GPS latitude and longitude data and commercial transaction data) facilitating rapid
analysis while other data may comprise highly unstructured data sets (emails, social media content, video
and audio streams) and therefore be more difficult and time consuming to analyse. Advances in data
This potential for bias can be seen in Strava’s mapping of Copenhagen (figure above), a city with very high
levels of utilitarian cycling. Here Strava accentuates slightly different routes than the city’s own bicycle traffic
survey (especially the route running from the northwest to the southeast). Strava routes are likely used by
recreational and sports cyclists on training rides rather than shorter-distance utilitarian cyclists. Likewise,
Strava seems to under-represent short-distance bicycle trips in the city centre. Without further contextual data
on the population generating the data – and especially the population of cyclists and pedestrians not using the
app – city planners would be hard-pressed to formulate sound policy recommendations.
The use of Big Data by policy-makers should be assessed according to the specific concerns at hand and the
level of knowledge relating to a problem to be addressed. For well-defined challenges where many variables
and their inter-relationships are understood, small, carefully stratified and representatively sampled data may
be as, and perhaps even more, effective at finding solutions than the use of Big Data. However, for situations
where knowledge is low, Big Data analytics may help elucidate relevant questions to ask and identify potential
new directions for policy.

processing and analysis techniques allow the mixing of both structured and unstructured data in order to
elicit new insights, but this requires “clean” data.
Cleaning data and preparing it for analytical use is a non-trivial task that may entail significant cost.
Structured data must be parsed and missing or potentially incorrect data accounted for. Unstructured data
must be correctly interpreted, categorised and consistently labelled. In some instances, manual “data
wrangling”, “data munging” or “data janitor work” remains a necessary component of the data collection
and analysis stream. This work requires a large investment in time and resources – accounting for 50% to
80% of data scientists’ time according to some estimates. (Lohr, 2014) Data preparation may be greatly
facilitated by the use of appropriate compensatory algorithms but the choice of algorithm may itself lead to
imputing or prediction errors if it incorrectly interprets missing values1
or minimises outliers that could be
important. Just as metadata relating to the data itself may help improve subsequent interpretation,
metadata regarding data cleaning and correction methods may be equally helpful – within reason, since
each new metadata element may weigh down data processing speed and efficiency.
In 2013, the MIT SENSEable City lab looked to data produced by social media platform Twitter to infer on
global mobility patterns. More specifically, the study extracted GPS coordinates from the mobile devices, or
IP addresses from the computers, used to send tweets. At present, approximately 1% of tweets can be
geo-located. (Morstatter, et al., 2013) This is expected to increase dramatically in the coming years due to
the proliferation of smart devices and mobile applications. Common to both homogenous and fused data
sets is a cleaning phase’: The data set gathered from Twitter’s Streaming API service was examined for
statistical errors and artificial tweets; namely for users having relocated at an impossible speed and posts
made by commercial users who were less likely to reflect human activity. From here, each user’s country of
residence was identified, based on where they had posted the highest percentage of tweets. All tweets
made outside of this country would flag the user as a visitor. The resulting network of tweet flows
suggested country-to-country preferences, as well as peak travel times for residents of a particular country.
(Hawelka, et al., 2014)
The major challenge associated with analysing a single source is in going beyond the literal meaning of the
data to answer more general questions. The Twitter streaming data sets provide an accurate account of
where a group of subscribers accessed a specific service at a given point in time. However, the resulting
representations are of limited use in elucidatingwhat influences user flows, such as the motivations behind
their movement and their preferred modes of travel.
Integration, aggregation and fusion
New insights can emerge from the analysis of single data sets but the real potential for new knowledge
rests on the improved ability to apply analytical methodologies to multiple data sources.
Data fusion techniques match and aggregate several heterogeneous data sets creating or enhancing a
representation of reality that can be used for data mining (see Box 4). Data fusion is an especially
important step in using inputs from multiple sensor platforms. For instance, data fusion algorithms help
process inputs from wheel movement sensors, accelerometers, magnetometers, cellular signal sensors,
cameras, laser scanners and GPS chips. All these data sources contribute to creating a precise
representation of the location of a car on a street. Such data fusion is necessary for the development of
autonomous driving vehicles. Here, the final representation of a vehicle (e.g. the precise vehicle location,
size, direction and speed) is all that is retained, thus eliminating the need to store every sensor’s individual
data stream. Mid-level data fusion methodologies merging structured machine-produced data are relatively
well advanced. On the other hand, high level data fusion tasks merging multiple unstructured analogue
1
See for example discussion in (Li & Li, 2013) and (Hutchins, 2010).

sensor inputs remains challenging and a focus of current research. (Khalegi, et al., 2013) It is this high-
level data fusion capacity – one that starts to emulate human capacities – that will be necessary for the
large-scale deployment of sensor-centric autonomous vehicles.
In the case of data integration or aggregation, data sets are matched and merged on the basis of shared
attributes and variables but the whole of each separate data set is retained. This method is well suited for
increasing knowledge discovery via the analysis of contextual data.
Box 4. WikiCity Rome case study
In the WikiCity Rome case study, the real-time visualisation of data mined from communication networks was
cross-referenced with the geographical terrain. This allowed urban dynamics to be presented in real-time to
observers. Such technologically enhanced spectacles - real-time infoscapes projected onto architectural
surfaces, or accessed via worn and handheld devices - provoke a temporary displacement of the observer from
the physical terrain they inhabit to a distant location, providing them with an overview of the dynamics
contained within the urban landscape.
Dynamic map illustrating the levels of activity within Rome during a Madonna concert
(real-time data created through interpolation of mobile phone usage)
Source: WikiCity Rome, MIT SENSEable City Lab.
The WikiCity Rome project tapped into aggregated data from mobile phone usage. The resulting visualisations
depicted the pulse points of the city, providing an overview of how the urban landscape is occupied, and where
and in which temporal patterns the mobile phone-using crowd is dispersed. Crowdsensing based on mobile
phone usage allows for spotting the “hot” locations and congested spots of the city in real-time. This can help
authorities to regulate traffic and the flow of resources within the city, based on real-time dynamics.

The challenging aspect of data fusion is in the extraction of salient features across multiple data sets
generated for different uses. In the case of the WikiCity Rome case study (see Box 4), the team at MIT had
to parse, extract and process the data collected by Telecom Italia, Atac, and Samarcanda. Furthermore,
they had to do so in real-time so as to contribute to the decision-making process of its users. In order to
create a dialogue between the different feeds, a common ontology was developed to describe the data in
terms of the following:
 Location (coordinates system, latitude and longitude) of the transmitting device or reported action.
 Time of data transmission or reported action.
 Data category (location-based mobile phone data, GPS data, news bulletin).
 Data format (single value, matrix, vector, text, image, etc.)
 Data representation (e.g. measurement unit).
 Semantics of the data (e.g. tracking vehicle or mobile phone).
In general, data fusion techniques aim to fuse accuracy and semantics. Data collected from multiple
sources often contain inconsistencies in terms of resolution. For example, in the case of WikiCity Rome,
Telecom Italia’s probes were sampling signal strength every 4.8 seconds, while Atac and Samarcanda’s
servers received GPS readings at 30-second and 5-minute intervals respectively. Semantics refers to the
subject being represented. In one case, the data tracks a vehicle; the other follows the initiator and
recipient of a call.
Analysis, modelling and visualisation
One outcome of the availability and relative low-cost of exploiting very large data sets is an evolution in,
and a broadening of, the analytic techniques used to extract insights from this data. Traditional approaches
involving statistics or optimisation methods are still relevant but run into data processing limitations when
considering extremely large and high-velocity data sets2
. Other knowledge-discovery approaches including
data mining (and the contribution of data mining to machine learning, network analysis and pattern
recognition) and visualisation techniques are more suited to Big Data.
Data mining
Data mining approaches differ from traditional database analysis methods in that they do not presuppose a
model describing relationships in the data nor do they require specific queries on which to base analysis.
Rather, these approaches let the data speak for itself, relying on algorithms to discover patterns that are
not apparent in the single, or more often, joined data sets.
2
The fact that traditional statistical approaches are challenged by massive and high-velocity data sets should not discount the fact
that statistical principles – especially in relation to data representativeness and bias – remain very relevant for Big Data
applications (see Box 3).
When the system was exhibited at the 10th International Architecture Exhibition of the Venice Biennale,
researchers at MIT SENSEable City Lab supplemented the mobile phone-based evaluation of urban dynamics
with data based on the instantaneous positioning of buses and taxis. This provided real-time information about
mobility, ranging from traffic conditions to the movements of pedestrians throughout the city. The visualisations
provided a qualitative understanding of how the aggregated data of network mobile phone usage and public
transit location information can be used to provide valuable services to citizens and authorities. Such
information “can give city dwellers a deeper knowledge of urban dynamics and more control over their
environment by allowing them to make decisions that are more informed about their surroundings, reducing the
inefficiencies of present day urban systems”. (Calabrese, et al., 2011)

Data mining algorithms perform different types of operations (PCAST, 2014):
 Classification, where objects or events are classified according to known categories (e.g insurance
companies employ classification algorithms to assign crash risk categories to drivers sharing certain
characteristics).
 Clustering, where patterns of similarity are sought in the raw data.
 Regression or numerical prediction, where numerical quantities are predicted according to regression
analysis.
 Association, where relationships between items in single or joined data sets are identified.
 Anomaly detection, where outliers or pattern breaks in data sets are identified.
 Summarisation, tabulating and presenting salient features within data sets.
Data mining approaches can be based on examples of relationships that provided by human operators and
are used to guide the process or via unsupervised operation where patterns are discovered algorithmically.
Especially in the latter case, the relationships exposed amongst data elements are correlative – that is,
patterns are revealed but not their value or significance.
Modelling
Building and running models helps test hypotheses regarding the impact and importance of different
variables in real-world systems. By simplifying simulating real-world phenomena, models help to
characterise, understand, quantify and visualise relationships that are difficult to grasp in complex systems.
Building models require data on baseline conditions and insight regarding the nature of relationships, either
correlative or causal, between multiple phenomena. The arrival of Big Data has drastically increased the
scale, scope and accessibility of modelling exercises though it should be noted that ability of these to
accurately track the real world is linked not just, or even principally, to the quantity and quality of baseline
data. Model construction and ensuring the right questions are asked remain essential to provide high-value
outputs. Well-constructed models built on sparse data may be as or more effective than poorly designed
models working on massive, real-time data sets.
With this caveat in mind, Big Data sources and techniques have allowed for novel models to be constructed
that provide new questions to be asked and new insights to be derived – as in the case of the recent
HubCab initiative carried out by the MIT SENSEable City Lab in partnership with Audi and General Electric
(GE).
HubCab analyses taxi trips to explore the benefits and impacts of vehicle sharing in New York city. The data
was derived from the records of over 150 million trips made by 13 586 registered taxis in Manhattan during
2011. (Santi, et al., 2014) The GPS-enabled taxis reported on the geographic coordinates (longitude and
latitude) and time of each trip’s origin and destination, creating a map of pick-up and drop-off points.
When applying geospatial analysis and modelling techniques to this data, the monitored terrain is either
broken into points, lines or polygon boundaries. (de Smith, et al., 2013) Using OpenStreemap, the HubCab
team drew an open-licensed world map to obtain the outline of streets. These were then cut into over
200 000 segments of 40-metre lengths. Once footpaths, service roads and other street types unlikely to
receive taxi traffic were removed, over one trillion possible routes were identified.
The resulting data set could be used to study more conventional queries, such as the location of the nearest
taxi or most efficient route for a single trip. The innovative aspect of the HubCab project, however, is in its
capacity to model and optimise trip-sharing opportunities through what is referred to as the “shareability
network” (see Figure 5). At a conceptual level, this involves building a network of links between nodes. In
the HubCab initiative the nodes represent individual taxi trips and the links connect trips that can be
combined. Taxi routes are recalculated in real-time to pick up new passengers based on their current
location and desired destination. (Santi, et al., 2014)

Figure 5. Optimisation strategy for taxi sharing
Source: Santi, et al., 2014.
Conclusions drawn from this exercise point to the potential impacts of taxi-sharing both at the level of the
city and of the individual. In cities like New York, taxi services account for a major share of individual
mobility. Hence, reducing the number of taxi trips would lead to dramatic reductions in air pollution and
traffic congestion. In the analysis performed by the MIT SENSEable City Lab, substantial benefits were
observed in triple trip sharing models over double trip sharing. Logically, the environmental gains
associated with reducing the number of taxi trips by a factor of 3 are greater than those achieved by
reducing by a factor of 2. However, trip sharing equates to longer wait times at pick-up points and less
direct routes to individual destinations. The viability of the triple trip sharing solution depends largely on
patient customers. This raises the question of whether cities like New York might push for fare systems that
incentivise patience.
Visualisation and dissemination
The immediate outcomes exhibited in the WikiCity Rome and HubCab examples are interactive maps that
invite people to engage with mobility patterns shaped by their surroundings. The power of these
visualisations is in their ability to inspire action from the most cost-effective and readily available urban
actuators: citizens. Observing the real-time city becomes a means for people to understand the present and
anticipate future urban environments. This could result in users electing to share a cab with a stranger to
save on the cab fare or changing their mode of transport to avoid traffic congestion. On an urban scale,
information delivery platforms capable of combining layers of information in a comprehensible manner can
increase the overall efficiency and sustainability of city planning and regulation.
For centuries, humans have relied on the graphical or pictorial representation of data to make records of
information accessible, comprehensible and, most importantly, appealing to the human mind.
Consequently, the recent explosion of data has also seen a rise in tools focusing on effectively visualising
that data. Many tools excel in depicting information using traditional methods like tables, histograms, pie
charts and bar graphs. But bar charts couched in lengthy documents or slide presentations are often not

adapted to an audience beyond professionals. As data sets gets larger and efforts to exploit this data seeks
to reach more people, the language of data visualisation must adapt and improve.
Citizens are living in an increasingly visual world, peering into screens of different sizes with incrementally
superior resolutions with every device upgrade. As visual literacy rises, more professionals will be expected
to know the language of data visulation. Visualisations – like the one of New York City taxi trips in Figure 6
- serve not only for information delivery but also for generating interest and making an impact – they are
presentations of information framed at the convergence of art, digital media and information technology.
Figure 6. Pick-up and drop-off points of all 170 million taxi trips over a year in New York City
Source: MIT SENSEable City Lab.
The application of real-time visualisation tools to study traffic congestion has increased in recent years in
response to the availability of data collected by traffic management centres and telecommunication
companies through daily operations. Perhaps the best-known examples are online map services (Baidu,
Bing, Google, Here, Naver, etc). These services use color-coded paths to indicate traffic speeds derived
from road sensors and GPS-enabled vehicles and mobile devices. The more recent Google Waze maps out
traffic incidents and other hazards reported by its 50 million users. (Forbes, 2014a)
In 2014, the researchers at MIT SENSEable City Lab sought to move beyond linking traffic accidents to
congestion towards more predictive visualisation tools for traffic management centres. Their “Traffic
Origins” study introduces time-lapse visualisations to observe how congestion propagates from a point
source, or, when used in after-action reviews, to understand the effectiveness of mitigation measures.
Despite having targeted expert users, the study emphasises the effectiveness of simple, aesthetically
pleasing visualisations to communicate complex relationships to both traffic controllers and laypersons.
(Anwar, et al., 2014)

Figure 7. Traffic incidents visualised using the Traffic Origins approach
(Expanding circles indicate incidents and the surrounding traffic conditions)
Source: Anwar, et al., 2014.
The next generation of visualisation tools for mobility applications should have a new visual language for
data. This language should ot only be scientific, but also accessible, communicative and compelling. Ideally
the tools should include the following capabilities:
 Geo-spatial: plotting data on customisable maps with additional geographical information.
 Time resolution: observing hourly, daily, weekly etc. patterns by easily switching between different
time resolutions.
 3D: data depicted as 3D objects on a 3D globe for an immersive experience.
 Animation: free navigation to different periods of time in the data and comparison capabilities.
 Interaction: ability to pan or zoom to particular points and interact with them to display additional
information.
These tools should be built to serve as a visualisation platform for experts and the average person alike –
a knowledge base and centralised hub for visualising different types of data in unique and innovative ways.
They could be made accessible through an Internet browser, eliminating the need to install special
software. The interface should be simple and intuitive to encourage data interaction for the average user
and eliminate the need for coding. Basic data operations available might include “grouping”, “filtering”,
“adding metadata” and “identifying data types”, and would allow users transform and structure raw data
into meaningful representations. For quick exploration and storage of massive data sets, the system’s back-
end should be connected to a powerful cloud-computing engine, leveraging the open-source distributed
computing framework. These frameworks are able to create visualisations from Big Data in a matter of
minutes.

Figure 8. Analysis and visualisation of labour market access in Buenos Aires
(by mode of transport)
Source: World Bank and Conveyal, 2014.

Figure 8 depicts an analytic and visualisation-based tool developed by Conveyal in partnership with the
World Bank. Building on prior work undertaken for the Regional Plan Association of the greater New York
metropolitan area, this online tool allows the quantification and visualisation of access to labour markets in
Buenos Aires, Argentina. It is built upon a hybrid platform comprising open-source spatial and transport
network analysis software (OpenTripPlanner and Transport Analyst)3
, an open source format for encoding
public transport schedules and route/stop locations (General Transit Feed Specification – GTFS), a global,
open and collaborative cartographic database (OpenStreetMap), and an open source Java library for
implementing on-line map-based visualisations (Leaflet4
). Using this freely open and replicable platform
users can dynamically visualise open data on jobs (including job distribution, access and sector) within the
city. This in turn allows users to effectively derive insights that had been difficult or nearly impossible to
elucidate previously.
For example, Figure 8 shows in the “villa miseria” of Villa Fiorito, in Buenos Aires. “Villas miseria” are low-
income informal housing neighbourhoods, or slums. The online tool calculates the number and type of jobs
accessible by these low-income residents given actual public transport schedules and real street
topography. In a 45-minute (one-way) time window, Villa Fiorito residents can access 194 485 jobs using
scheduled public transport. However, as the visualisation shows, they could potentially access four times as
many jobs (825 442) by bicycle. This type of information, previously not as easily accessible, could more
effectively guide investment in public transport or, alternatively, in safe bicycle infrastructure5
.
To promote universal access and shareability, visualisations should be able to be exported and distributed
in a number of formats, from pictures to videos or web pages. Interactive tabletops and large interactive
displays are more likely to appeal to novice users (Benko, et al., 2009) and attract attention in public
spaces. (Isenberg, et al., 2010) The shareability of the visualisation platform itself becomes equally
important as it allows for smart integration with other platforms like government web portals. It also allows
new modules to be added by third parties in an open-source environment.
Visualisations based on data need not only be made using the types of “pre-digested” formats described
above. Diffusion of the products of data analysis, as well as the distribution of some forms of data, already
takes place using paper or digital documents. However, the utility of these channels is waning since these
media are generally static. Online access to tabular or geographic data that is directly useable by various
software platforms can be valuable for some forms of data analysis. Increasingly, however, diffusion of data
will occur via machine-interpretable Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) or data formats that allow
the integration of this data directly into different mobile or other applications. App-led data access on
mobile handsets based on APIs has contributed to many new services that greatly facilitate navigation,
travel, logistics and other transport-related services for individuals and businesses. Data diffusion via APIs
will play an increasingly important role in citizen access and use of mobility-related data but the ultimate
benefits of this data diffusion channel will depend on the terms of use associated with that data.
Data terms of use run the spectrum: from completely “open” terms with no restrictions on use and
redistribution, to highly-constrained terms that allow commercial access to data only under a limited set of
conditions. Open data proponents advocate for as much data as possible to be provided under open terms
of use. This includes (nearly) all government-collected data, which they argue citzens already pay for via
taxes, and therefore should have free access to. There are of course issues with the open data model
relating to security and privacy concerns. However, many authorities are moving towards opening access to
3
Conveyal.com, accessed April 2015.
4
Leaflet is a service based on leafletjs, an open source JavaScript library for mobile-friendly interactive maps (leafletjs.com).
5
The same analysis indicates that, in freely flowing traffic conditions, Villa Fiorito residents could potentially reach 25 times more
jobs by car in 45 minutes than by scheduled public transport. This serves to explain the compelling attraction of individual
motorised mobility. The potential of car travel is unlikely to be reached, though, as it is constrained by household incomes as
well as by time losses linked to congestion at peak hours.

much of their data, especially in transport. On the other end of the spectrum, the limitations imposed in
accessing commercially collected data are understandable, given that the companies collecting data, and
delivering services based on the use and analysis of it, must deliver value to their owners and shareholders.
The debate surrounding “open” versus “closed” data access is one that has emerged alongside the
development of Big Data and may prove to be a transitory debate, as data access channels and terms
evolve over time. Ultimately, more flexible and perhaps more modular data terms of use will need to evolve
to allow individuals, authorities and commercial operators to all make the most of Big Data.

3. BIG DATA, PERSONAL DATA AND PRIVACY – 33
3.Big Data, personal data and privacy
The exponential growth in the production and storage of mobility-related data has been accompanied by
rising concerns relating to the adequacy of regulations ensuring privacy. These concerns have been fuelled
by the personally identifiable nature of much of the data being collected and the fact that it is often
collected without the full knowledge and informed consent of the data object. Even arguably “anonymous”
data – for instance unencrypted transmissions from tire pressure monitoring systems – can now be easily
cross-referenced with other sources of contextual data to link individuals to vehicles and vehicles to
locations and trajectories. This can be seen to compromise reasonable expectations of personal privacy.
Location-based data is particularly vulnerable to breaches in privacy. Yet much of the mobility-related data
being produced today has a geospatial component.
Big Data analytics raises several issues relating to generic privacy threats. These are related to, but
different from, threats related to breaches of cyber-security (see box 5). Privacy threats exist in relation to
the collection or discovery of personal data by economic agents as well as by governments. In the latter
case, recent allegations relating to large-scale data collection and storage by governments has raised acute
concerns regarding the extent of state-sponsored “dataveillance”. Mobility-related data, especially location-
based data, raises a set of specific privacy and data protection concerns that will be addressed in this
section.
Box 5. Privacy vs. cybersecurity threats
Privacy is “the claim by individuals, groups or institutions to determine for themselves when, how and to what
extent information about them is communicated to others, and the right to control information about oneself
even after divulgating it” Alan F. Westin. (Westin, 1967)
Geo-spatial privacy is “the ability of individuals to move in public space with the expectation that under
normal circumstances their location will not be systematically and secretly monitored for later use” Geospatial
Privacy and Risk Management Guide, Natural Resources, Canada. (Natural Resources Canada, 2010)
Cybersecurity and privacy are two distinct but related concepts. They define and attempt to enforce
policies relating to computer use and electronic communications. In particular, cybersecurity seeks to assess
the following (PCAST, 2014):
 Identity and authentication: Are you who you say you are?
 Authorisation: What are you allowed to do to which part of the system?
 Availability: Can attackers interfere with authorised functions?
 Confidentiality: Can data communications be passively copied by someone not authorised to do so?
 Integrity: Can data or communications be actively manipulated by someone not authorised to do so?
 Non-repudiation, auditability: Can actions later be shown to have occurred?
The growing importance of network-based information and other connected services in transport obviously
poses increased cyber-security risks, especially when networked-based systems interact directly or indirectly
with primary control systems of vehicles.
A recent survey of potential cyber-attack vulnerabilities of US cars identified a number of potential attack
surfaces posing variable risks depending on vehicle and sub-system design. It notes that manufacturers’
anticipation of risks and design response is uneven, especially for secondary systems – including the distributed
network of electronic control units (ECUs) within vehicles. Convergence between sensor networks and vehicle
control systems (e.g. those found in automatic cruise control, lane keeping or parking assistance functions)
poses particularly strong risks in that sensor inputs can potentially be modified or spoofed leading to degraded
or lost control of vehicles (Miller & Valasek, 2014).
One response to the growing complexity of vehicle hardware-software interfaces is to develop comprehensive
but variable secure system architecture based on critical risk assessments. For instance, EU project EVITA

34 – 3. BIG DATA, PERSONAL DATA AND PRIVACY
Despite concerns over privacy, location-based data enhances services available to individuals and may
contribute to significant improvements in safety, traffic operations and transport planning. For instance, E-
call or E-911 services that enable vehicles to report their spatial coordinates to a central server in case of a
crash improve response times and accuracy.
Likewise, individuals voluntarily contributing their spatial coordinates to applications have the expectation
that this data will improve the quality of service they receive. This exchange is the basis for many services
that provide real-time traffic information or personalised recommendations for hotels, restaurants and the
like. But the value of this data is not limited to the explicitly identified first-use case. Companies can and
have aggregated and sold this data – or the results of their analysis of this data – to other companies or
public authorities for re-use, merging with other data and re-analysis.
There is a real tension between the value of large-scale flows of what may be weakly or non-anonymised
data and the contribution that this same data can make to individuals and society. Part of this tension
emerges because uses for this data may emerge only after the data has been collected or combined with
other data, rendering notification of intent moot. There is also a realisation across many jurisdictions that
the regulatory framework concerning data collection and use, for mobility-related data in particular, is
poorly adapted to changes occurring in the volume and velocity of data collection. Finally, there is a fear
that regulatory backlash against the collection and use of Big Data may hamper yet-undiscovered value in
this data and curb the economic and social benefits the use of such data promises.
These challenges are acute and what is at stake is an erosion of personal privacy rights. These rights are
ones that some in the private sector believe are, at best, not aligned to current technological developments
outlines trust models and security measures that are based on core hardware security modules, hard-wired into
each electronic control unit. These have various levels of strength depending on the mission-criticality of each
ECU sub-system. In this case, ECUs controlling speed, forward and backward motion, steering and braking
receive the highest level of protection and those controlling the on-board environment receive lower protection.
At the core of the system are strong cryptographic methods that ensure the integrity and authenticity of system
messages and allow for the detection of tampered, altered or non-authentic messages to or from vehicle
systems. (EVITA, 2012)
Other cyber-security vulnerabilities remain. Two recent examples of cyber-attacks on indirect but mission-
critical systems involve spoofing of Global Positioning System (GPS) signals used to pilot ships and aircraft. In
the first instance, researchers were able to feed spoofed GPS coordinates to the automatic navigation system of
a vessel allowing the attackers to gain full directional control. Although the attack was on an automatic
navigation system, the method also fed incorrect GPS coordinates to all on-board GPS receivers. This meant the
crew only received data indicating the vessel was still on-course. (Bhatti & Humphreys, 2014) In the second
instance, an unmanned drone was spoofed into flying off-course. (Kerns, et al., 2014) It has been reported that
a similar approach was used to gain access to and divert a US military drone in 2011. (Peterson, 2011)
Cyber-security risks are also a concern for transport systems more broadly, as increasing complexity and
connectedness opens up new avenues for malicious interventions. The need for adequate data encryption
protocols and practices for handling remote sensor data was highlighted by a remote and passive hack of
unencrypted wireless road sensor data. Spoofing or manipulating this data could have important and severe
consequences for traffic system operations that depend on these data feeds to coordinate emergency services,
signal timing and traffic variable messaging systems, among others. (Cerrudo, 2014)
Both cybersecurity and privacy focus on potential damages that can be caused via malevolent or dangerous
manipulation of computer and communication systems. Poor cybersecurity practices may lead to exposure,
gathering and malicious use of personal data. However, privacy risks remain even in fully secured systems.
Misuse of personal data in otherwise secure systems by authorised operators represents a violation of privacy
policy, not of security policy. Similarly, violations of privacy may emerge after data fusion across multiple, fully
secured, systems. These distinctions are important and demonstrate it is not enough to focus solely on cyber-
security in order to ensure personal data protection. (PCAST, 2014)

or, at worst, irrelevant6
. Many proponents of this belief point to the very real improvements in service
delivery that could be facilitated by data convergence. A world in which, for instance, personal and
seamless mobility choices could be offered to citizens based on their individual characteristics needs and
behaviours. However, as pointed out at a recent OECD Technology Foresight Forum, Big Data analytics
should not be absolved of core ethical principles. Foremost amongst these principals is the understanding
that “just because you can, doesn’t mean you should”. (OECD, 2013)
There is also a risk that regulatory backlash against Big Data fuelled by attacks on personal privacy may
hamper innovation and curb the economic and social benefits the use of such data promises. Evolving
regulatory approaches will have to simultaneously deliver on the pro-privacy and pro-innovation
expectations of citizens.
Personal data protection frameworks
OECD personal data protection framework and guidelines
In 1980, the Organisation for Cooperation and Development (OECD) adopted the first internationally-
agreed (but non-binding) guidelines framing the collection and exchange of personally identifiable data –
the “Guidelines Governing the Protection of Privacy and Transborder Flows of Personal Data”. These
guidelines were issued in the hope that they would serve to balance privacy concerns with the benefits that
derive from the international flow of information. They have served as the underlying framework for data
protection and privacy laws throughout the OECD and elsewhere. They are not law and their
implementation into national regulations has not been uniform. Yet they have served as a basis for the legal
framework surrounding data protection in many jurisdictions. The guidelines are articulated around eight
principles addressing (for more detail, see box 6):
 Limitations to data collection.
 Data accuracy and relevance to stated use.
 Communication of the purpose for data collection and limitations of data use to that purpose.
 Restrictions on data disclosure.
 Data safeguard and security measures.
 Transparency regarding the use, and changes in use, of personal data.
 The right of individuals to have access to or control the use of their data.
 Accountability of data controllers regarding the above principles.
As a general guiding framework for data privacy policies, these principles have served relatively well over
the past 35 years. However, in practice and in important points of detail, their continued implementation
has become increasingly problematic. The environment in which data privacy efforts has evolved since the
creation of the 1980 OECD Guidelines, as outlined in previous sections. In particular, the implementation of
these principles is challenged by a number of factors (OECD, 2013):
 The growing ubiquity of data collection across multiple platforms.
 The volume and velocity of data produced and collected.
 Data fusion and aggregation efforts that potentially de-anonymise data.
 The range of analytical methods and techniques that reveal information regarding individuals, their
behaviour and associations and their interests.
6
Some leaders in the IT sector have intimated that privacy rights as they have been interpreted in the past are no longer
feasible. Eric Schmidt, Executive Chairman of Google, is quoted as saying: “If you have something that you don’t want anyone
to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place” – (Banks, 2011)). Scott McNealy, CEO of Sun Microsystems is on
reecord saying “You have zero privacy anyway … Get over it." (Sprenger, 1999).

 Ex-post data mining and re-use of data in ways that were not originally intended.
 The growing range of threats to the privacy of personal data.
 The number of actors that can either compromise personal data privacy or act to protect it.
 Citizens’ insufficient or ill-informed knowledge regarding the complexity of interactions relating to the
collection and use of personal data.
 The ease of access to and global availability of personal data.
Furthermore, at the core of the OECD Guidelines (and other initiatives and laws inspired by OECD
Guidelines them) is the notion that only personal data – e.g. information that could identify an individual
such as a name or a civil registration number, or that could reasonably be used to identify an individual
such as an address – should be governed by those principles. Personal data that has been de-identified –
e.g. personal data that has had individual identifiers removed or that has been modified in such a way as to
make re-identification reasonably unlikely – arguably falls outside of the scope of these principles. However,
the combinatory aspect of Big Data blurs the line between personal and “anonymous” data. There is a real
risk that the latter may serve to re-identify the former when used in conjunction with other ostensibly
anonymous data sources.
In response to these challenges, the OECD reassessed the 1980 principles and adopted a revised set of
principless (OECD, 2013) that provided new guidance, notably in the areas of accountability and notification
of security breaches. The 2013 guidelines also highlighted the need for further research on the evolving
nature of consent, purpose limitation and of the role of the individual in data privacy. Ultimately, however,
the expert group preparing the OECD Council document could not reach consensus regarding the
modification of the original eight core principles and thus these remain unchanged.
A number of other national or international privacy protection guidelines have been based on the OECD
principles each emphasising or de-emphasising certain aspects. (Cate, 2006)
EU personal data protection frameworks
In 1995, the EU Data Protection Directive (Directive 95/46/EC) identified a set of principles that largely
incorporates those of the OECD guidelines. Two additional principles were added: one on independent
oversight of data controllers and processors; and one outlining the legally enforceable rights of individuals
against data collectors and processors.
The ePrivacy Directive of 2002 (and revised in 2009) speaks more specifically to location data. Location
data in the Directive refers to:
“The latitude, longitude and altitude of the user’s terminal equipment, to the direction of
travel, to the level of accuracy of the location information, to the identification of the network
cell in which the terminal equipment is located at a certain point in time and to the time the
location information was recorded.” (Directive 2009/136/EC)
However, the ePrivacy Directive considers location data only in the context of binding rules for telecoms
operators (Cheung, 2014) – this is an important distinction that largely ignores other collectors,
aggregators and users of location data (see Box 8 on location accuracy). Companies identified as
“information society services” fall outside of the regulatory framework of the ePrivacy Directive, even if the
location data they collect is transmitted via telecom operators’ networks.
In 2012, the European Commission outlined a new directive – the General Data Protection Directive – to
replace that of 1995. This new regulation builds on the prior text but outlines several enhanced privacy
protections. These include:
 The “right to be forgotten” to help manage online data privacy risks. Individuals can request that data
pertaining to them be deleted if there are no legitimate grounds for keeping it.

 Improved visibility and access to one’s personal data and the right to transfer one’s personal data from
one service provider to another.
 Requirements for clear and explicit consent to collect and use personal data.
 Improved administrative and judicial remedies in cases of violation of data protection rights.
 More robust responsibility and accountability for those collecting and processing personal data – e.g.
through data protection risk assessments, data protection officers, and the principles of ”Privacy by
Design” and ”Privacy by Default”. (European Commission, 2012)
Crucially, the General Data Protection Directive simplifies the definition of personal data to “any information
related to a data subject”. This explicitly includes location data. In contrast with recent US discussions on
data protection, the proposed EU Directive upholds the need for robust notice and consent prior to the
collection and processing of personal data from data subjects. The EU approach also stresses the need to
limit data collection to within its stated purpose, to ensure restrictions on automated processing and the
need for independent regulatory oversight and robust enforcement mechanisms for transgressions
regarding personal data rules (as inscribed in national laws).
European approaches to data privacy are seen by many as the standard in most parts of the world where
data privacy laws have been enacted, and this influence seems to be growing. (Greenleaf, 2012) (Schwartz,
2013) The General Data Protection Directive is set to be adopted in 2015 and will represent the strongest
implementation of the data protection rules inspired by the OECD Guidelines. This may foreshadow a
strengthening of personal data protection rules in a number of jurisdictions – but not all as discussed below.
Box 6. OECD Guidelines Governing the Protection of Privacy and Transborder Flows
of Personal Data
As adopted by the Council of Ministers of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development on 23
September 1980.
1. Collection limitation principle
There should be limits to the collection of personal data and any such data should be obtained by lawful and fair
means and, where appropriate, with the knowledge or consent of the data subject.
2. Data quality principle
Personal data should be relevant to the purposes for which they are to be used and, to the extent necessary for
those purposes, should be accurate, complete and kept up-to-date.
3. Purpose specification principle
The purposes for which personal data are collected should be specified not later than at the time of data
collection and the subsequent use limited to the fulfilment of those purposes or such others as are not
incompatible with those purposes and as are specified on each occasion of change of purpose.
4. Use limitation principle
Personal data should not be disclosed, made available or otherwise used for purposes other than those specified
in accordance with the “purpose specification principle” except:
a) with the consent of the data subject
b) by the authority of law.
5. Security safeguards principle
Personal data should be protected by reasonable security safeguards against such risks as loss or unauthorised
access, destruction, use, modification or disclosure of data.
6. Openness principle
There should be a general policy of openness about developments, practices and policies with respect to

APEC and other Asian personal data protection frameworks
In 2004, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum adopted the APEC Privacy Framework that, in
its 9 principles, consciously builds on the OECD Guidelines. It extends the notice and consent principle to
include a call for “clear and easily accessible” statements, along with a call for all reasonably practical steps
be taken to provide consent either before or at the time of collection – or soon thereafter. This change in
language is a concession to the fact that notice and consent may be difficult to achieve in certain scenarios,
including those that involve real-time or machine-to-machine digital data collection.
The APEC Privacy Framework also introduces a principle on preventing harm –in particular, the need for
data protection efforts to be commensurate with the potential for harm from personal data release or
discovery. Not all personal data poses the same risk for creating negative outcomes for data subjects and
data protection efforts should account for this. (APEC, 2004)
Within Asia, many countries have put in place personal data protection frameworks that are inspired by
those of the OECD/EU and APEC with some important distinctions. In particular, many countries in the
region have adopted an EU-like approach that encompasses formalised notice and consent requirements for
data collection and use, the creation of a limited, and often time-bound, set of conditions on data
processing and controls on the forward movement of data to third parties or other jurisdictions.
In Japan, for instance, notice of data collection can be provided directly to an individual or via public
announcement. In either case, explicit consent is not required if the purposes for use of the data have
previously been specified in the personal notice or public announcement. Specific opt-in consent is only
required in cases that go beyond the announced data usage. (Rich, 2014) The South Korean Data
Protection Act has stringent guidelines in place regarding the need for notice and express consent for
collection, use and transfer of personal data. The notice must specify the intended use of personal data and
its eventual disclosure to third-parties (Rich, 2014).
personal data. Means should be readily available of establishing the existence and nature of personal data, and
the main purposes of their use, as well as the identity and usual residence of the data controller.
7. Individual participation principle
An individual should have the right:
a) To obtain from a data controller, or otherwise, confirmation of whether or not the data controller has data
relating to him.
b) To have communicated to him, data relating to him:
i) within a reasonable time
ii) at a charge, if any, that is not excessive
iii) in a reasonable manner
iv) in a form that is readily intelligible to him.
c) To be given reasons if a request made under subparagraphs (a) and (b) is denied, and to be able to
challenge such denial.
d) To challenge data relating to him and, if the challenge is successful to have the data erased, rectified,
completed or amended.
8. Accountability principle
A data controller should be accountable for complying with measures which give effect to the principles stated
above.

United States’ personal data protection frameworks
In 1998 and again in 2000, the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) reported to the US Congress those
principles it felt should frame US data protection policy. These related to (Cate, 2006):
 notice given to citizens regarding data collection and intended uses
 the choice framework offered to citizens relating to personal data collection and use and the need to
obtain consent
 the possibility for citizen’s to access data about themselves and to contest this data on grounds of
inaccuracy or incompleteness
 the responsibility for data controllers to keep personal data secure and accurate, and
 the need for enforcement and redress mechanisms to secure the above.7
Noticeably absent from the FTC communication to Congress is an explicit data collection limitation principle
and one relating to data quality.
In 2012, the Federal government issued a report outlining a Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights (CBRB) which
addresses commercial but not public sector uses of personal data. While drawing on precedent set by the
OECD Guidelines, the CBRB introduces the concept of context-dependency – that is that citizens should
expect that data controllers and processors will collect, analyse and dispose of data in line with the context
in which citizens supplied the data. (PCAST, 2014)
Generally, the United States and the EU have differed in their approaches to the protection of personal data
in a number of significant ways. While the EU has favoured a single framework for addressing personal data
protection, the US (and some other countries) have favoured a sectoral approach and, in particular,
distinguish between the private and public sector when making rules governing the collection, processing
and use of data.
The way in which personal data is treated by the law in the US also differs according to the entity that
controls the data or the type of data recorded. This sectoral approach has tended to place higher
restrictions on incumbent industries in existing and more regulated sectors such as telecommunications in
contrast with many recent new and emerging businesses in the IT sector. (Schwartz, 2013)
In contrast with the EU, the US generally adopts an approach best characterised by “regulatory parsimony”
in the field of personal data protection. For instance, the US approach generally allows data collection and
processing unless a specific law prohibits it whereas the EU requires express legal authorisation for data
processing. The divergence from an OECD/European-style approach to personal data protection seems
likely to increase given recent developments.
In January 2014, the Executive Office of the President of the United States announced an initiative to
investigate ways in which Big Data will affect the lives of citizens – including their privacy rights – and to
suggest new directions for policies accounting for these changes.8
The output from that initiative highlights
the difficulty traditional notify-and-consent frameworks face in light of evolving data collection and
processing practices.
In the first instance, it notes that the context-dependency principle of the CBRB fails to account for the
changing nature in which personal data is collected and how personally identifiable data can be inferred
from “anonymous” data. Data that can be tied to an individual is increasingly not provided by the data
7
The enforcement/redress principle was dropped in the guidance issued by the FTC in 2000.
8
The initiative was led by White House Counsellor John Podesta and informed by an advisory group of the President’s Council of
Advisors on Science and Technology. The outcome of this work was two reports: Big Data: Seizing Opportunities, Preserving
Values (Executive Office of the President, 2014), and Big Data and Privacy: A Technological Perspective (PCAST, 2014). Both
outline future policy directions that could be frame US policy in the matter, although neither are binding.

subject itself but harvested from ambient data sources or emerges ex-post from co-mingling of various data
streams. This risk increases with the growth in data volumes and, especially, the growth in data sources
like smart phones and other personal mobile devices.
In the second instance, it stresses that the value emerging from data collection and analytics increasingly
emerges after the fact and after combining and mining diverse data streams. The President’s Council of
Advisors on Science and Technology suggests that compelling benefits emerge from retaining personal or
potentially personably identifiable data for subsequent re-analysis as analytical techniques evolve.
Arbitrarily requiring data to be deleted would, they argue, stifle innovative insights and uses that may
otherwise emerge.
Effectively anonymising or otherwise obscuring personal information within retained data would moot
privacy concerns relating to data retention. But the proliferation of Big Data sets and the multiplication of
data sources erode the effectiveness of anonymisation and de-identification techniques.
The Executive Office report also highlights the challenge of enacting meaningful consent from citizens and
consumers. Consumers are often presented with an exhaustive notification text while they are trying to
access a particular service. The app or service provider may have spent considerable effort and legal
expertise crafting a thorough consent notification document that does not conflict with the service
provider’s commercial interest. However, the consumer in a hurry to access a service rarely reviews such a
notification, rendering any consent they provide as superficial or blind. In this way, data protection efforts
may in fact be weakened rather than strengthened by the current notice and consent framework.
Additionally, the intersection between the need to provide notice and consent under current regulatory
frameworks and the practice of broadly and open-endedly mining data has resulted in increasingly wide-
ranging and permissive privacy notice and consent clauses. This has led to a situation where data subjects
may willingly agree to an erosion of their privacy rights because they are neither engaged in a meaningful
way and because of overly broad conditions regarding use of their data.
Faced with these challenges, the report of the Executive Office asks “whether a greater focus on how data
is used and reused would be a more productive basis for managing privacy rights in a big data
environment”. (Executive Office of the President, 2014) In particular, the President’s Council of Advisors on
Science and Technology notes that:
“…the non-obvious nature of Big Data’s products of analysis make it all but impossible for an
individual to make fine-grained privacy choices for every new situation or app. For the
principle of Individual Control to have meaning, [we] believe that the burden should no longer
fall on the consumer to manage privacy for each company with which the consumer interacts
by a framework like “notice and consent.” Rather, each company should take responsibility for
conforming its uses of personal data to a personal privacy profile designated by the consumer
and made available to that company (including from a third party designated by the
consumer)”. (PCAST, 2014)
This view is shared by many industry actors (see below) and, if implemented, would signal a strong break
from existing data protection frameworks like those outlined in the OECD principles and in EU legislation.
Private-sector initiatives
Since the update to the OECD principles, two private-sector initiatives have sought to push the regulatory
framework further still. The first initiative, led by Microsoft Corporation and organised by the Oxford
University Internet Institute, released the report “Data Protection Principles for the 21st
Century”. (OII,
2014) The second initiative, organised by the World Economic Forum (WEF) in collaboration with the Boston

Consulting Group (BCG), published its analysis in the report “Unlocking the Value of Personal Data: From
Collection to Usage”. (WEF, 2013)
Both initiatives share the view that the 2013 update of the OECD Guidelines is anachronous and
insufficiently addresses the rapid and fundamental changes surrounding data collection, analysis and use.
They detail what they see as fundamental differences with traditional approaches to data protection as
exemplified in the OECD rules (see Table 1).
Table 1. Emerging private sector perspectives regarding data use and privacy
Traditional Approach Emerging New Perspectives
Data actively collected with data subject
and data user awareness.
Data largely from machine-to-machine transactions and passive
collection – difficult to notify individuals prior to collection.
Definition of personal data is predetermined,
well-identified and binary (personal/not personal).
Definition of personal nature dependant on combinatory techniques
and other data sources or may be contextual and dependent on
social norms.
Data collected for a predetermined specific use and
for a duration in line with that use.
Social benefits, economic value and innovation come from co-
mingling data sets, subsequent uses and exploratory data mining.
Data accessed and used principally by the data
subject.
Data user can be the data subject, the data controller and/or third
party data processors.
Individual provides consent without full
engagement or understanding.
Individuals engage in meaningful consent, understand how data is
used and derive value from data use.
Data privacy framework seeks to minimise risks to
individuals.
Data protection framework focuses more on balancing individual
privacy with innovation, social benefits and economic growth.
Source: (WEF, 2013).
The WEF and Oxford/Microsoft initiatives stress that the current framework offering a binary (yes/no) and
one-time consent is out of step with pro-innovation data collection and use practices, as well as ignoring the
fact that data subjects are also data producers themselves. In particular, WEF outlines what it has identified
as four main shortcomings of the revised OECD Guidelines:
 They fail to account for the possibility that new and beneficial uses for the data will be discovered, long
after the time of collection.
 They do not account for networked data architectures that lower the cost of data collection, transfer
and processing to nearly zero, and enable multi-user access to a single piece of data.
 The torrent of data being generated from and about data subjects imposes an undue cognitive burden
on individual data subjects. Overwhelming them with notices is ultimately disempowering and
ineffective in terms of protection.
 In many instances - for example, while driving a car or when data is collected using many machine-to-
machine (M2M) methods - it is no longer practical or effective to gain the consent of individuals using
traditional approaches. (WEF, 2013)
In many fundamental ways, the conclusions of the WEF and Oxford/Microsoft initiatives echo the recent
work of the Executive Office of the President in the United States. This could be because the latter drew
heavily on industry representatives involved in the former. They also run counter to the most recent
developments in EU personal data protection.
In light of the ambiguous nature of personal data and the difficulty in reconciling the principles of purpose
specification, use limitation, notification and consent with evolving Big Data collection and analytic

practices, both the WEF and Oxford/Microsoft initiatives emphasise a need to re-visit some of the core
principles of the OECD Guidelines.
Most important is the need to re-formulate personal data protection practices that currently rest on
providing notice and consent, towards principles outlining clear rules and sanctions on allowable uses of
personal data. Oxford/Microsoft’s “Data Protection Principles for the 21st
Century” summarises this position:
“A revised approach should shift responsibility away from individuals and towards data
collectors and data users, who should be held accountable for how they manage data rather
than whether they obtain individual consent. In addition, a revised approach should focus
more on data use than on data collection because the context in which personal information
will be used and the value it will hold are often unclear at the time of collection.” (OII, 2014)
Under this premise, Oxford/Microsoft proposes a revised set of principles adapted from the 1980 OECD
Guidelines. These revised principles make a distinction between principles that should apply to data
collection and those that should apply to data use. Furthermore, it broadly expands the boundaries of data
use. It calls for potential harms that could stem from discovery of personal data to be more rigorously
balanced with the benefits that could stem from personal data collection and use. It also stresses that the
principles it proposes are only applicable to personal data that has not been de-identified. Finally, it retains
the notion of notice and consent as per the original OECD Guidelines but loosens this requirement by calling
on data collectors to “evaluate whether individuals might reasonably anticipate that their data will be
collected in determining whether consent is required”. (OII, 2014)
WEF notes a number of emerging issues that will have to be addressed if the shift outlined above were to
become operationalised:
Firstly, a shift from passive and binary consent to more engaged models of user involvement with their data
brings a need to trace data to a source and to an individual. Attaching metadata that is both Persistent and
un-purgeable to raw output from sensors or as early as possible in the data collection chain could help. This
is an approach promoted by “Privacy by Design” advocates (below and box 7).
Secondly, more meaningful options will have to be made clear to citizens regarding the uses of their
personal data. In this context, offering a broad palette of context-specific use consent choices – e.g.
allowing use of personal data for medical or emergency services but not for targeting advertisement – may
be the way forward. It may also be useful to distinguish between using personal data to generate broad
insights (e.g. in support of transport planning) versus use of these insights (e.g. particular daily mobility
patterns) applied to an individual.
Finally, in addition to regulatory frameworks, WEF notes that new types of user-centric arrangements (peer
networks, privacy “labels”, designated privacy profile “managers”, etc.) have yet to be explored. These
arrangements can help to further engage individuals in ensuring that their preferences regarding the use
and re-use of their personal data are met.
It should also be noted that, generally, the drift away from existing notice and consent frameworks to one
more focused on use of data presupposes the presence of a well-funded and competent regulatory agency.
Such an agency would oversee data uses and resolve, and possibly prosecute, conflicts. Furthermore, such
an agency would need to be equipped to address asymmetric and extended legal struggles with large and
powerful multi-national corporations. There is evidence that such an approach may work – examples in the
field of competition policy come to mind – but it is far from clear that authorities have an appetite for
creating such strong and well-resourced agencies given the general move away from expensive and
powerful regulatory control in many countries.

“Privacy by Design”
Much of the regulatory discussion regarding the collection and use of personal data says little about the design
of data collection mechanisms and practices. In most cases it assumes that little will evolve in terms of the
way in which data and data systems embed and transmit bits of personably identifiable information. This view
is contested, especially by those who advocate the “Privacy by Design” approach (see box 7). This approach
holds that data collection systems and practices should be designed (or re-designed) from the ground up to
include strong and irreversible pro-privacy measures for data collecting and handling systems – even in the
design of machine logging protocols and sensors.
Box 7. “Privacy by Design”
“Privacy by Design” is an approach to the design of data collection mechanisms and practices developed
by Ann Cavoukian, Executive Director of the Institute for Privacy and Big Data at Ryerson University, Canada,
and former Information and Privacy Commissioner for the Province of Ontario. “Privacy by Design” is based on
the principle that strong pro-privacy measures should be addressed at the design stage for data collection and
analysis, not retro-fitted ex-post once data has been collected and analytic systems developed. The approach is
comprised of seven core principles.
1. Proactive, not reactive – preventative, not remedial
The “Privacy by Design” (PbD) approach is proactive rather than reactive. It anticipates and prevents privacy
invasive events before they happen. PbD does not wait for privacy risks to materialise, nor does it offer
remedies for resolving privacy infractions once they have occurred – it aims to prevent them from occurring.
“Privacy by Design” comes before-the-fact, not after.
2. Privacy as the default setting
“Privacy by Design” delivers the maximum degree of privacy by ensuring that personal data are automatically
protected in any given IT system or organisational practice. If an individual does nothing, their privacy still
remains intact. No action is required on the part of the individual to protect their privacy – it is built into the
system, by default.
3. Privacy embedded into design
“Privacy by Design” is embedded into the design and architecture of IT systems, organisational and business
practices. It is not bolted on as an add-on, after the fact. The result is that privacy becomes an essential
component of the core functionality being delivered. Privacy is integral to the system, without diminishing
functionality.
4. Full functionality: positive-sum, not zero-sum
“Privacy by Design” seeks to accommodate all legitimate interests and objectives in a positive-sum, win-win
manner, not through a zero-sum approach, where unnecessary trade-offs are made. “Privacy by Design” avoids
the pretence of false dichotomies, such as privacy vs. security, demonstrating that it is possible to have both.
5. End-to-end security: full lifecycle protection
“Privacy by Design”, having been embedded into the system prior to the first element of information being
collected, extends securely throughout the entire lifecycle of the personal data involved – strong security
measures are essential to privacy, from start to finish. This ensures that all personal data are securely retained,
and then securely destroyed at the end of the process, in a timely fashion. Thus, “Privacy by Design” ensures
cradle to grave, secure lifecycle management of personal information, end-to-end.
6. Visibility and transparency: keep it open
“Privacy by Design” seeks to assure all stakeholders that whatever the organisational or business practice or
technology involved, it is in fact, operating according to the stated promises and objectives, subject to
independent verification. Its component parts and operations remain visible and transparent, to users and
providers alike.

“Privacy by Design” calls for privacy-protective measures to be built directly into the design and operation
of technology as well as into data management practices surrounding data systems (e.g. work processes,
management structures, physical security perimeters, linkages in networked infrastructure) (Cavoukian,
2010). Proponents of “Privacy by Design” feel that this approach enhances the ability for data analytics
(and Big Data analytics in particular) to deliver value since fewer conflicts emerge regarding the release of
personally identifiable information. Both the EU Data Protection Directive and the WEF report outlined in the
previous section note the importance of “Privacy by Design” approaches.
“Privacy by Design” in the context of big data rests on seven features (Cavoukian & Jones, 2012):
1. Full attribution: Every observation or record should be traceable to its point and time of creation. This
includes data related to the type of machine logging process or sensor platform involved. Merge-purge
data processing where some data or metadata fields are discarded when data is combined must be
avoided. This allows the fine-grained implementation of user data preferences and ensures their
backwards compatibility, even in merged data sets. Full provenance metadata facilitates data
accountability, reconciliation and audit and is essential for the application of personalised privacy
controls on data. According to “Privacy by Design” advocates, full attribution of data should be made
the default setting in systems and should not be allowed to be turned off.
2. Data tethering: Additions, modifications and deletions in data systems should be accounted for in real
time and should propagate throughout all other data systems that include the data in question. When
data is modified in one system, these changes should cascade throughout the shared data ecosystem
irrespective of who manages each linked or merged data set. This includes changes in the privacy
setting for that data. This feature pre-supposes strong access rights that are linked to the original data
collector or user. Data tethering should be the default according to “Privacy by Design” and this should
be an inalterable setting of data management systems.
3. Analytics of anonymised data: Anonymising or encrypting personally identifiable data as well as
quasi-identifiers is an essential step in ensuring that Big Data analytics do not encroach on individuals’
privacy rights. Adequate de-identification techniques are essential to pro-privacy data analytics. These
de-identification techniques should be adapted to the potential harm that may emerge from re-
identification as well as to the potential difficulty or barriers to re-identification. Seemingly anonymous
location-based data (e.g. anonymous GPS tracks) requires particular attention since it serves a strong
quasi-identifier in combination with other data sources. Data anonymisation or encryption should occur
as early in the data collection and analysis chain as possible.
4. Tamper-resistant audit logs: Every material interaction upon a data set containing personal
information, identifiers or quasi-identifiers should be logged in a tamper-resistant manner by default
and by design. System administrators should be subject to, and should not be able to override, this
setting.
5. False negative favouring: When personal data entailing civil liberties are concerned, it is better to
design privacy protection policies that favour false negatives rather than false positives – e.g. it is
better to miss a few things than to inadvertently make claims on the basis of personal data that are not
7. Respect for User Privacy: keep it user-centric
Above all, “Privacy by Design” requires architects and operators to keep the interests of the individual
uppermost by offering such measures as strong privacy defaults, appropriate notice, and empowering user-
friendly options. “Privacy by Design” is user-centric.
Source: Cavoukian, 2012.

true. Algorithmically-favouring false negatives should be the default in data collection and analysis
systems unless there are compelling and transparent reasons for the contrary.
6. Self-correcting false positives: With every new data point created or presented, prior assertions
based on that data should be re-evaluated to ensure they remain correct and if not, new corrected
assertions should be propagated backwards and forwards in real time.
7. Information transfer accounting: Every onward transfer of data either to human observation or to
machine systems should be logged to allow stakeholders (data controllers or data objects) to
understand how their data is flowing and is being used.
These hardware and system design features could go a long way to improving the systematic definition,
tracking and application of individual privacy settings across multiple operators and jurisdictions. However,
at present they are not bundled into any of the data protection frameworks outlined earlier. Furthermore,
they are not operationalised in national data protection legislation or comprehensively integrated into
industry codes of practise. Work on updating data protection practices should draw on these design
standards in order to ensure that strong personal data protection settings are at the heart of new data
collection and analysis efforts. This will likely entail codifying “Privacy by Design” into national and
international personal data protection rules in a way compatible with technological developments and
industry practices.
Privacy and location-based data
Personal data includes information such as name, address, sex, employment history, marital status,
religion, finances, and unique identifiers such as passport or identity card numbers. This data can reveal
facts that individuals may not agree to share broadly. This data can also be used to discover further
personal information when combined with other data sources. All of the privacy frameworks outlined above
are specifically concerned about these types of data and many efforts have gone into their protection or de-
identification. However, location data can also be seen as very personal.
Box 8. Precision of geo-location technologies
Precision of geo-location technologies

Locating and tracking individuals at higher than one meter precision (up to a precision of a few centimetres) in
both outside and indoor environments is currently feasible. It will likely become standard – at least in urban
areas – as current location-sensing technologies become ubiquitous. In a large measure, the widespread
penetration of mobile phone technology – and especially that of smartphones – makes this possible. The same
location technologies deployed in the current generation of mobile phones are also migrating to vehicles
enabling precise and persistent tracking.
Global Mobile Subscriptions (millions)
Source: Ericsson, 2013.
In 2013, Ericsson estimates that there were 6.9 billion mobile subscriptions globally (including smartphones,
basic phones PCs, routers, tablets and M2M devices using mobile subscriptions). All of these devices access
cellular networks (2G, 3G, 4G LTE and others) and in so doing create a log of geo-localised data used by
network operators to provide for seamless call service. In addition, almost all new phones (smartphones and
basic phones) have global positioning chipsets and all new smartphones have Wi-Fi capability as well as
numerous embedded sensors. These technologies allow operators and application developers to have access to
extremely precise location data – an option that many app developers are exercising. In 2014, the Global
Privacy Enforcement Network, a group of 39 national and international privacy enforcement authorities,
conducted a review of popular mobile apps in their respective countries and regions. It found that 32% of the
1 211 apps investigated sought access to the devices’ location data. (OPCC, 2014) Moreover, according to one
survey in the United States, half of all mobile phone users and 74% of smartphone users use location-based
services. (Zickhur, 2012)
Cellular base station-based localisation
Mobile phone connectivity requires a near-constant series of handshakes between handsets and the network via
cellular communication antennas. These antennas, and the cells they define, are densely located in urban areas
and less densely located elsewhere. Mobile phones regularly and frequently “ping” cellular networks in order to
determine their location, which is calculated by determining the location of the cell antenna closest to the
handset. This results in a precision equal to the size of the cell, which can range from a few hundred metres in
urban areas to a few kilometres elsewhere. Cellular operators also keep track of hand-offs from one cell to
another in order to provide seamless service while the handset is in use. In-call hand-offs and in-call dwell
times (e.g. the amount of time an in-use mobile phone remains in a single cell) provide rough indications of
movement and immobility. Cell antenna location data is augmented by several other techniques that account
for return signal response time, signal strength and angular deflection. When these data are triangulated with
signals from several other cell antennas, location precision is improved and can run anywhere from a few dozen
to hundreds of meters. (European Commission, 2011)
1 914
29%
4 474
67%
293
4%
2013
6681
5 629
61%
2 854
31%
685
8%
2019
9168
Smartphone Feature/basic phone Mobile PC/Router/Tablet

Cellular location logs constitute large, complex and growing data sets owned and exploited by cellular network
operators in the course of ensuring seamless phone communications. Cellular-generated location data –
especially when linked to consumer location and demographic profiles – represent a large potential source of
revenue for operators, e.g. by selling analyses of their own data or by selling data for analysis by third-parties.
This data may also be relevant for certain transport policy applications. For example, by matching triangulated
cell data with map data relating to transport networks in order to estimate traffic flows and speeds. However,
the differential precision across large-scale areas may be problematic for some applications.
Global Navigation Satellite System-based localisation
Almost all new phones and all smartphones integrate a Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) system
microchip that allows precision location information to be generated from one of two (and soon three) dedicated
satellite networks. The most common of these is GPS. In open areas with clean lines of sight to at least
4 satellites, GPS accuracy can be up to 5 metres. This accuracy degrades, however, in areas where GPS signals
are disrupted by tall buildings or trees and inside of buildings. Assisted-GPS (A-GPS) increases location
accuracy by combining GPS location signals with cellular location data providing sub-10 metre precision. Other
forms of hybridised GPS location systems can provide similar levels of precision by using Wi-Fi network signals.
Indoor localisation and tracking of Wi-Fi-enabled devices inside a conference centre
Source: http://apps.opendatacity.de/relog/
Wi-Fi-based localisation
Wi-Fi-enabled outdoor and indoor location sensing can deliver even greater precision by tracking individual
media access control addresses (MAC addresses – unique identifiers allocated to individual devices such as a
laptop computers, mobile phones, tablets, Wi-Fi-enabled cars, etc…) within a network of Wi-Fi routers and
transponders. Wi-Fi-enabled devices set to automatically connect to one or several networks regularly ping the
available networks in order to join to known ones. This ping contains the MAC address unique to each device
thus enabling device location and tracking. Sometimes this ping also includes data on previous Wi-Fi networks
the device has connected to. With sufficiently dense Wi-Fi router networks, very precise location and movement

Precise geo-referenced location data represents a large and growing subset of Big Data as mobile devices
and location-sensing technologies become ubiquitous (see Box 8). Collection and use of this data helps to
provide citizens with cellular phone service, enhanced contextual data (proximity to restaurants, friends,
9
Examples of geolocation service providers include Apple, Google, Skyhook, Streetlight Data, Euclid Analytics, Insoft, Navizon,
Altergeo, Combain Services.
data can be inferred (as illustrated in the figure above).
Wi-Fi network configurations and node locations are also collected by numerous commercial operators
delivering a suite of geolocation services
9
. These use “found” data from Wi-Fi sweeps, volunteered information
from smartphone owners (based on automatic sensing and recording of all Wi-Fi networks detected along with
their respective signal strengths) or Wi-Fi network managers. These inputs create very precise Wi-Fi
“fingerprints” for individual spatial coordinates. These can then be used for locating new devices as they cross
these coordinates. Some devices and apps regularly transmit data on Wi-Fi network “snapshots”, which can be
used to create context-aware services. This same data, if retained on a device or a central server, can also
serve to track the device.
Other localisation technologies
Additional sensors in smartphones and other mobile platforms including accelerometers, gyroscopes and
magnetometers enhance location and tracking even when cellular/Wi-Fi connections are insufficient and GPS
signals are degraded. For instance, merged sensor data from an accelerometer, gyroscope and magnetometer
can help determine location in reference to a last-known GPS-determined position by calculating heading and
speed. This type of dead reckoning enhances tracking in areas with low, or no, GPS signals (as in tunnels).
Dedicated networks of radio frequency identification signal (tracking the location of radio frequency
identification – RFID – tags) or Bluetooth receivers can also provide precision location data, especially inside
buildings or structures such as tunnels. The latter is the basis behind Apple’s iBeacon location technology.
The ability to extract precise location information from “noisy” and unstructured analogue data feeds, such as
those produced by cameras and microphones, has advanced tremendously thanks to sophisticated image and
audio recognition algorithms. These, combined with coupled sensing-computing chips and in-stream signal
processing techniques, allow machines to view, classify and attach significance to what they “see” and “hear”.
Current image recognition-based technologies (and soon, voice recognition-based technologies) ensure
sub-1 metre precision. Tracking individual objects and people based solely on face- or voice-recognition
technology, especially across a number of sensors, is problematic but is improving and is being deployed in
certain commercial or law-enforcement situations. Identifying, classifying and tracking semi-structured visual
data from video or still feeds (e.g. automatic license-plate recognition, extraction of street-sign data from a
series of geo-referenced photographs or video) is less challenging and has already been deployed at a large
scale. Both HERE Maps and Google extract, classify and geo-code traffic signs as recorded by their mapping
cars.
Machine logs recording specific and spatially localised interactions with stationary devices such as contactless
turnstiles in public transport systems, electronic toll stations and even commercial payment card terminals
provide a rich record of data points that can be built up to provide point-based trajectories in both time and
space. These data allow for very precise positioning of card-holders or vehicle-based transponders but only at
the point of interaction with the terminal. In closed systems such as freeways, travel times and speeds can be
approximated as can passenger and vehicle flows at specific points. Additionally, fixed or mobile computers can
be located with some level of precision by using their IP address though this data is not as precise as some of
the other data sources discussed above
Finally, digital pictures, especially those taken on GPS-enabled devices, often include geographic coordinates of
where the picture was taken in the file header. Picture archives and other image posting sites can be mined for
location histories that are associated with the pictures an individual has taken. This history can be explicitly tied
to an identifiable person when cross-referenced with volunteered information on, for instance, social media
sites. In aggregate, this data can help track where persons tend to congregate by examining the co-location of
pictures in space and time.

etc.), navigation, traffic, or other services (e.g. meteorological updates). Location-based services are a
growing part of the connected economy and are expected to contribute up to USD 700 billion in consumer
surplus by 2020. The majority of this surplus (USD 500 billion or 70%) would result from time and fuel
savings due to GPS navigation and real-time traffic services. (Manyika, et al., 2011) Location data has
fuelled growth in the connected economy but citizens are wary of divulging too much information about
their whereabouts and their daily behaviour. One survey indicated that over 70% of those responding want
to have specific knowledge about when and why applications collect location data (Balebako, et al., 2013)
and another found that citizens were increasingly concerned about the scope of location data collection.
This concern has heightened in light of secret, large-scale and trans-border data collection efforts by
national security agencies:
“The legal framework surrounding the use of location-based data and tracking technologies has
evolved more slowly than the technologies themselves. Data protection rules have primarily been
concerned with the protection of personal data – and only incidentally concerned with other
dimensions of privacy including privacy of the person, privacy of personal communications and privacy
of personal behaviour (though these areas are often addressed in criminal and civil law).” (Clarke &
Wigan, 2011)
Location data are sourced from a number of platforms (see Box 8); mobile phone handset, tablet or
computer, GNSS (such as GPS) receiver (e.g. in a car), Wi-Fi enabled device, video or localised machine
tracking and logging devices (smartcard public transport turnstiles, tolling systems, etc.). The location
accuracy derived from these methods varies in precision, reliability and timeliness. Some of the data can be
imprecise but produced in real-time (with a lag of milliseconds to seconds), some can be very precise but
only available ex-post via machine logs. Much of the location data produced by personal devices or
embedded systems in vehicles, however, is both precise and delivered in nearly real-time. (Clarke & Wigan,
2011)
Advances in sensor platform architectures are likely to increase the amount of location-tagged data
produced, just as the ability to process data captured in-stream becomes more prevalent and less costly.
Semiconductor chip-maker Broadcom’s announcement of a combined GNSS chip and sensor hub into a
single system-on-a-chip signals a new powerful class of sensing platforms. (Broadcom, 2014) These
platforms will enable on-the-fly fusion and pre-processing of data from Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS, Micro Electro-
Mechanical Systems (MEMS) auch as accelerometers, and other technologies as they become more
widespread. (e.g. LTE networks) Due to significant claimed power savings and reduced size10
, these types
of chipsets open up new possibilities for always-on location sensing and analysis for next-generation
portable or wearable devices. Combined sensing-processing chipsets open up the possibility for
cryptographically treating data in real-time or for applying privacy-enhancing pre-processing, but they do
not in themselves ensure greater privacy protection and could plausibly even erode personal data privacy
further still.
“You are where you’ve been”
Rarely is the data directly linked to a unique individual – what is being tracked is a sensor-based platform.
Objects such as these that exist in the real world (a phone, a SIM card, a car) are known as entities.
Entities can have identities (Marie’s car, Dinesh’s phone, Jari’s SIM card) that result from the linking of an
entity and a specific identifier (Vehicle ID number, IMEA handset number, SIM card number). However, the
geo-spatial data collected by these devices reveals a lot about individuals. Many of these platforms
(especially mobile handsets and car-based navigation systems) are intimately linked to one person’s activity
patterns in time and space – not just to a specific identity number. Mobile handsets are almost always on or
near to their owners and cars are rarely shared outside of the household.
10
Broadcom claims an 80% reduction in power usage and a 34% reduction in chipset area.

By looking at patterns of relative inactivity and linking these to publicly available personal and business
registries, location data exposes a daily pattern of activity that includes where a person sleeps, where they
work and other places they frequent. These patterns of daily activity have been found to be extremely
repetitive and predictable. This data can reveal a person’s religion (repeated visits to a place of worship),
their political affiliation (visits to political or NGO offices and co-location with demonstrations) and other
information that can be inferred from where they go and where they spend time. This data can, in
11
See for example (Feng & Timmermans, 2013), (Hemminki, et al., 2013), (Manzoni, et al., nd), (Shafique & Hato, 2014), (Reddy,
2010), (Susi, et al., 2013), (Stockx, 2014) and (Bernecker, et al., 2012).
Box 9. Transport mode detection via Smartphone sensing
The great amount of data produced by mobile phones has created new opportunities to infer movement and
travel-mode related information for individuals. Extracting clustered speed profiles from cellular positioning data
has been found to be relatively robust method for making a first determination of travel mode (Wang, et al.,
2010).
Transport mode detection – Tri-axial accelerometer profiles for various travel modes
Adapted from (Feng & Timmermans, 2013)
More recently, research has focused on extracting movement-related information from smartphone and other
portable device accelerometers. These accelerometers provide a flow of tri-axial readings measuring acceleration
against baseline gravitational pull. Acceleration profiles are created by sampling the data and these profiles can
then be analysed in order to isolate unique acceleration “signatures”. Because of the close link between
smartphones and their owners, these signatures can reveal many things about how individuals move.
In the field of health, acceleration profiles can be used to identify gait-related pathologies such as Parkinson’s
disease or to track daily activity (e.g. step counting or activity profiling). Gait can also serve as a biometric
identification parameter as it is uniquely related to specific individuals.
In the field of transport, considerable research has been undertaken to algorithmically infer mode of travel from
acceleration profiles11
. The predictive accuracy of these methods has improved greatly with some research
indicating (much) higher than 90% correct inference across multiple modes. This accuracy has been achieved by
using training data sets and archived data but in the near future increasingly reliable, accurate and real-time
travel mode inference will be possible thanks to improved algorithms and in-sensor processing.
x-axis
y-axis z-axis
z-axis
x-axis
y-axis
walk bike car bus metro

conjunction with similar data on other people, reveal the network of friends, acquaintances or colleagues a
person has – especially when cross-referenced with volunteered data on social networking sites. This data
can also reveal important and potentially significant pattern breaks that can compromise privacy (e.g. visits
to an obstetrician’s or an oncologist’s practice). (Blumberg & Eckersley, 2009)
Fine-scale analysis of sensor outputs in smartphones can even reveal whether a person is walking, cycling,
driving, on a bus or in a plane or other vessel (see Box 9).
“We know where you’ve been”
The ability to discover personal information grows as geospatial data is accumulated and as other data
sources become available for cross-referencing and co-mingling. Though nominally “anonymous”, the geo-
spatial trail people leave behind is in fact highly personal and unique – it is (nearly) as identifiable as a
fingerprint (Figure 9). Trajectory-based and time-stamped location data is a potent quasi-identifier for a
single person or persons within a single household.
Figure 9. Individuals’ time-space trajectories are powerful identifiers
The fact that fine-grained trajectory data can be linked to specific individuals seems understandable.
However, even coarse-grained and imprecise trajectory data can be re-identified with relatively little effort.
Research on the privacy bounds of location data has resulted in a number of high-profile re-identification
cases that have successfully isolated individual mobility traces from low granularity cellular base station
data. A team of researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab analysed 15 months of
mobile phone data for 1.5 million subscribers. They found that even for data with a temporal resolution of
one hour and a spatial resolution equal to the cellular network’s base tower cells12
, just four spatio-
temporal points were sufficient to isolate and uniquely identify 95% of the individuals. Further coarsening of
the temporal and spatial granularity only weakly and gradually lessoned the ability to isolate unique
12
A few hundred metres in an urban setting, much larger distances elsewhere – see Box 8.
latitude
longitude
time
People’s patterns of movement in space and time are repetitive and
predictable. These trajectories are powerful identifiers – like fingerprints

individuals. (de Montjoye, et al., 2013) Other research has confirmed the vulnerability of similarly sparse
and coarse trajectory data to plausible and relatively straightforward de-identification and inference attacks
resulting in re-identification rates ranging from 35% to 88%.13
“It’s hard to hide where you’ve been”
The difficulty with which trajectory data can be adequately and persistently protected has led some to question
whether it is worth the effort to do so. As seen in the previous section, voices are emerging in the United States
and from within the private sector encouraging a move away from regulating data collection – including location
and trajectory data – and towards setting robust rules regarding the use of that data. On the other end of the
spectrum, “Privacy by Design” advocates have stated that the risk of re-identification has been largely overstated
and that few real cases of linking individual mobility traces to unique names, addresses, or other personal
identifying data have been undertaken (Cavoukian & Castro, 2014)14
. There is truth in both arguments.
With time, the sophistication of de-identification algorithms is likely to grow as is the availability of other sources
of information that could compromise the anonymity of location and trajectory data. De-identification techniques
are a major research interest. Yet the results of this work are not confined to laboratories, but rather serve to
generate commercially valuable data. Government agencies also use these techniques to track individuals.
Nonetheless, de-identification attacks are not fully “trivial” – they require algorithmic sophistication, time to
“clean” data errors, access to reliable data on personal identifiers (home address, ID number, etc.) and, most of
all, sufficient motivation to overcome these hurdles.
At the same time, location-based and trajectory data are difficult to fully and permanently de-identify.
Protecting the anonymity of high dimensional data like space-time trajectories or genetic information is
more complicated than anonymising low-dimensional data such as addresses, names, blood-type, etc.
Anonymising location and trajectory data: four suggestions
The most robust data protection methods should be applied to location, trajectory and other high
dimensional personal data
Data collectors and processors have at their disposal a multitude of de-identification techniques that range
from simple anonymisation to cryptographic protection (see Box 10). In the case of high-dimensional
location or trajectory-based data, there is a compelling argument to be made for using the most robust of
these techniques and even seeking additional data protection methods. (Cavoukian & Castro, 2014)
13
See (Zhang, 2011), (De Mulder, et al., 2008) (Song, et al., 2014) and a full review of recent research on re-identification of
trajectory data in (Gambs, et al., 2014).
14
Of course doing so would pose ethical challenges that researchers may be unwilling to face or overcome.
Box 10. Anonymisation and de-identification strategies
De-identified personal data is personal data that has had individual identifiers removed or has been modified in
such a way as to make re-identification reasonably unlikely. This approach preserves privacy by ensuring that
data cannot be linked to a single individual or entity (such as a car). The best way to irreversibly de-identify
data is to delete it but this would negate any possible benefits from post-collection analysis. For this reason,
great effort has gone into finding robust ways to anonymise data while retaining value through sufficient
granularity. In so doing, anonymised data must be robust to three risks:
 Singling out: individuals or unique objects should not be able to be isolated from the anonymised data
set.
 Linkability: single or groups of data subjects should not be able to be linked via records in the same or
separate data sets (some techniques protect against singling out, but not against linkability).

 Inference: attributes of an individual or a group of data subjects should not be possible to deduce from
the values of other attributes.
Data de-identification techniques, and in particular techniques for de-identifying location and trajectory data, is
a rich and continuously evolving research topic. This evolution is necessary given the growing sophistication of
re-identification and inference-based attacks on de-identified location and trajectory data. There are 3 broad
approaches to preserving privacy through the anonymisation of location and trajectory data: randomisation,
generalisation and pseudonymisation/encryption.
Randomisation-based approaches alter the nature of data in order to reduce its representation of reality. In
doing so, these approaches seek to render data sufficiently uncertain so that they cannot be inferred to a single
individual.
Randomisation techniques include “salting” data sets with spurious elements. “Salting” is not a robust
standalone anonymisation technique. Should the noise added to the data set fall out of a credible range – or be
semantically inconsistent with “real” values – then these elements can be identified and stripped from the data
set negating the anonymisation effort. At the same time, sufficient noise should be added to adequately
degrade the representativeness of the data set but this can reduce the value of the data set. Further, the data
set still must have direct identifiers stripped from it prior to processing.
Permutation-based approaches, where some values are shuffled amongst data set records so as to create
artificial records, preserve the distribution of values within a data set but degrade the traceability of individual
records to unique individuals. However, permutation fails to anonymise data adequately if the some attributes
are strongly correlated and can thus be inferred even if values are permuted. Permutation, like data set
“salting”, is not a sufficiently robust anonymisation technique.
The above techniques insert noise upstream to its use. “Differential privacy” describes a technique whereby
noise is added to query responses made on an original data set. In this context, the anonymisation of the data
is operated on the fly in response to third-party queries. Repeated and targeted queries, however, can isolate
key elements of the data and lead to its re-identification. This approach requires monitoring and actively
controlling data queries so as to counter this risk as well as ensuring that sufficient noise is added to query
responses.
Generalisation
Generalisation-based approaches de-identify data by grouping attributes in increasing units of magnitude so as
to erase their individual identities – e.g. grouping responses by census blocks rather than by individual
addresses, or by month rather than by day. This approach is robust to singling out but requires sophisticated
and targeted techniques to protect against linking and inference-based re-identification attacks.
Generalisation-based approaches include grouping records such that they are indistinguishable from a defined
number of other records or by only identifying records based on interval values (06:00-09:00 hrs,
30-50 kilometres per hour, census blocks regrouping at least 200 households, etc.). However, with sufficiently
strong quasi-identifiers that are not themselves generalised and insufficient clustering, generalised data sets
can be re-identified. One way of increasing the robustness of generalisation techniques is ensuring that
generalised classes of attributes contain a sufficiently broad range of values and distribution. To do so the
distribution of the values in each generalised attribute class must mirror the range of attribute values within the
entire data set (in order to prevent inference attacks based on differential attribute distribution). Nonetheless,
the increasing sophistication of re-identification algorithms and the availability of data sets that can be used in
inference attacks continue to erode the ability for even the best generalisation-based techniques to protect
anonymity.
Privacy by pseudonymisation/encryption
Pseudonymisation is a security-enhancing rather than an anonymisation technique per se. It consists of
replacing one attribute (typically a direct identifier) with another unique value. As such it reduces the linkability
of a data set but does not impact the data set’s vulnerability to singling out or inference attacks.
Pseudonymisation can be independent of the original data as in the case of a random number assigned to the
attribute or in the case of a username assigned by the data subject. Pseudo-identities or values can also be
directly generated from the original data via the use of a hash function or an encryption key. In the case of
single-key pseudonymisation, direct identifiers may be hidden but the data sets remain vulnerable to singling
out, linking and inference-based attacks, especially for location or trajectory and other high-dimensional data.

Though data collectors may argue that location and trajectory data are de-facto anonymous, this is clearly
not the case since the geo-spatial component of the data is itself a powerful quasi-identifier. (Gambs, et al.,
2014)15
The next step of location data protection – simple anonymisation or pseudonymisation – is only
possible when geospatial data are associated with straightforward data identifiers (such as name, address,
etc.) that can be redacted or given pseudonyms. Neither of these approaches should be considered an
adequate basis for de-identification especially in the context of associated geospatial coordinates.
(Cavoukian & Castro, 2014)
Efforts to anonymise location and trajectory data by clustering points or traces into larger groupings of like
data can improve anonymity. Numerous researchers have studied such generalisation-based approaches.
However, there is a risk of re-identification even from aggregate data if the aggregation ignores particular
characteristics of the data set. Unsophisticated clustering techniques – such as aggregating data by
obfuscating data or by adding spurious data – can help but sufficiently large sets of location-based or
trajectory data can nullify the impact of such data “noise”.
Effective protection of location, trajectory and other high dimensional personal data should combine both
anonymisation and encryption
Neither anonymity nor pseudonymity, nor clustering nor obfuscation prevents location-based data from
being transmitted, interpreted and exploited. The data is still composed of recognisable “plain text”
latitudinal, longitudinal and time-referenced character strings albeit at different levels of coarseness.
Cryptographic methods, on the other hand, remove the ability to interpret the geospatial data by
transforming it cryptographically. Only those with the appropriate key can convert the cipher back into plain
text and then exploit the geospatial elements of the record.
15
It is for this reason that the proposed EU General Data Protection Directive explicitly defines location data as “personal data”. As
such, location data would fall under the scope of that Directive (as transcribed into national legislation) and be subject to strong
requirements regarding notice and consent before collection.
Encryption-based approaches can effectively secure data from unauthorised access and use by, in effect, hiding
the data rather than anonymising it. The level of protection offered by encryption is related to the type of
encryption employed. Encryption locked by a single key is only as effective as the security of the key.
Sophisticated decryption algorithms, vulnerability to brute force attacks and the ability to mobilise large and
scalable computing resources to break encryption keys justify the use of extremely secure encryption keys. If
the key is compromised, either by breaking or by obtaining it from human operators, then personal or location
data is fully accessible.
Data sets encrypted by hashing involve producing a fixed-sized encrypted output from an input variable of
differing sizes. Hashing is irreversible but not immune to re-identification attacks if the input values are of a
fixed size and the full range of input values are otherwise known. In this case, the attacker simply has to run all
known attribute values through the same hashing method to derive a table of corresponding hash-original
values. This can then be used to single out, link or infer unique individuals and relationships between attributes.
In a recent example of the shortcomings of insufficient hash encryption, the city of New York released an
extensive data set of individual taxi trajectories comprised of 173 million geo-referenced records. The principal
identifying features, the hack licence and medallion numbers were hashed using a well-known algorithm which
encrypted them irreversibly. The rest of the data, including time stamps, location and trajectory data, were
provided in open text. Because of the invariant format of both taxi license and medallion numbers, it was trivial
to run all possible iterations of these numbers through the same encryption algorithm and find matches in the
released hashed data. In less than two hours, all 173 million records had been de-anonymised and linked to full
details available in other data sets recording taxi license holders. (Goodin, 2014)
The above example illustrates not that encryption itself is an insufficient technique to protect personal data but
rather that poorly designed encryption methods are vulnerable. Adding noise to the attribute to be hashed
(“salted” hash), combining the hash function with a secret key, or individually hashing each attribute and
deleting the correspondence table would have more effectively protected the database from re-identification.

Cryptographic protection of location and trajectory data seems a promising approach and one that has
attracted considerable attention. On-the-fly encryption and de-encryption is facilitated by the emergence of
“sensors-on-a-chip” that can sense, compute, encrypt and transmit data in real time. Such encryption
allows trusted communication between devices that handle mission-critical tasks (e.g. communicating
location, heading, speed, system state between vehicles, or between infrastructure and vehicles, in a
complex traffic environment). It can also serve to protect and enforce rights associated with personal data,
including location-based data. Encryption-based approaches, however, require sufficiently robust and
secure system architecture to manage encryption keys, trusted identities and certificates. Public key
infrastructure (see Box 11) ultimately requires buy-in from a broad cross-section of actors and a trusted,
likely public body, to manage identity certification in an international context.
Box 11. Encryption and public key infrastructure
Public key protocols could contribute significantly to the protection and trustworthiness of essential data
whether in the case of encrypted communications between connected devices (e.g. cars, infrastructure, etc.) or
in the case of personal data protection and management systems.
In information security, certification refers to the issuing of certificates used for security verification of
messages between systems. Those certificates in fact contain a public key, i.e. a key that can be used to verify
the electronic signature that is appended to a message.
The different certificates and certifying entities may be addressed in different ways. For example, pseudonym
certification authorities are also referred to as authorisation authorities, while pseudonym certificates are
referred to as authorisation certificates, authorisation tickets or short-term certificates. Long-term certification
authorities also go by the names enrolment authority or enrolment credentials.
Communication and data exchange requires trust and robust anonymity
Cooperative ITS systems (C-ITS) depend on managed and trusted access in order to allow the communication
of essential data without compromising the security or privacy of system users. These systems must ensure
that, firstly, the messages that are exchanged are authentic messages, i.e. they originate from the source they
claim to have come from; and secondly, that the anonymity of the users is assured. This can be done by
verifying the message's signature.
To give an example: A car senses a slippery stretch of road and slows down. It warns the vehicles around it
that it is slowing down and the road is slippery. The infrastructure also receives this message. The road
operator spreads the warning further and looks into causes and remedies to the situation. How do the road
operator and the other cars know that this message has not been sent from, say, a non-C-ITS device on the
roadside or the source of the message has been hacked? Furthermore, the individual motorist has to be sure
that no movement can be tracked by unauthorised actors. In another example, an individual may authorise a
data collector to collect and use data for a specific application. How can this authorisation be authenticated and
traced to the specific permission granted by the data subject?
The recipient of a message has to trust the source of the message in order to be able to verify the message
security. In ITS communications, trust is the confidence that a particular public key belongs to the entity
claimed, which ensures that the corresponding signature has been really provided by the entity. This is done by
a dedicated arrangement called Public Key Infrastructure (PKI), composed of certification authorities that
confirm the ownership of a public key by an entity i.e. by issuing a public key certificate, which is an electronic
document that binds a public key with an identity, as stated in the certificate. PKI architecture is a system
design safeguard against abuse and a mean to protect the privacy of the user.
The masquerade
The analogy of a masked ball can help to illustrate the trust relationships embedded in public key architecture.
The masquerade has certain rules: 1) Guests must stay anonymous at all times; 2) an invitation to the ball
entitles guests to collect masks at the wardrobe; 3) guests can only trust other masked people and anybody
can listen to the conversations among masked guests; 4) only friends of the host are invited; 5) masks are
differentiated but they are all identifiable as having been distributed by the host (e.g. they display different
features but they are all red - the identifier for the host’s masks). The invitation itself is anonymous –guests’

names are not revealed.
Guests enter the ball and produce their invitation at the wardrobe where they receive a mask. All masked
guests can be trusted because they are all friends of the host. Still guests do not reveal their identity to others
and may return often to the wardrobe for a new mask. The host of the ball is not the owner of the house where
the ball takes place – but the owner of the house has given the host permission to hold the ball and distribute
masks in the wardrobe – as long as these are only distributed to trusted friends of the host.
Like the guests at the masquerade C-ITS equipment wears a mask when it communicates. The receiving C-ITS
hardware: 1) looks at the mask and 2) believes the message, because it recognises the mask the sender wears
(e.g. it is red). It does not identify the sender’s identity. The wardrobe where guests collect their masks in this
metaphor is the pseudonym certification authority. The host who has issued invitations to the masquerade
takes the role of what in C-ITS would be the long-term certification authority. The owners of the house where
the ball is held take the role of the root authority that controls the complete system. In C-ITS terms this system
would be called a public key infrastructure or PKI.
How can trust be established between the different players in C-ITS? In particular, how, from a technical
perspective, can trust be communicated and messages technically masked in a secure manner? Furthermore,
how can trust be established institutionally, meaning how should a body trusted be structured?
Certificates mean trust
The masquerade is based on trust. Trust in this analogy is communicated via:
 The invitation; guests received this from the host. The invitation also provides assurance that the
owner of the house has authorised the host to hold the masquerade.
 The mask; whoever wears a mask is a friend of the host and can be trusted by other guests. The
invitation and the mask represent so-called certificates. The invitation represents the long-term
certificate, the mask that is frequently changed during the party represents the so-called pseudonym
certificate.
 The glance between guests; those at the party, when they see another masked guest, can be
confident that that person is a friend of the host and hence trustworthy.
How does this work technically? When sending a message the C-ITS equipment sends three items: 1) the
message (in the analogy: the content of guests’ conversation); 2) the certificate itself that will allow any C-ITS
recipient to verify the signature (in the analogy: the mask); 3) the signature it generated from the currently
valid certificate and that particular message (in the analogy: the glance of the mask and hearing the voice of
the masked person). The signature and the certificate are pieces of data generated using mathematical
algorithms.
The mask and wardrobe: pseudonym certificates and pseudonym authorities
Pseudonym certificates serve the purpose of anonymising the movement of a piece of C-ITS equipment. They
are the mask in the analogy. The C-ITS equipment changes them on a frequent basis. The movement of the C-
ITS equipment cannot be tracked by the recipient or a series of recipients, since the C-ITS equipment changes
its certificate on a regular basis.
The C-ITS sender receives its pseudonym certificates from the pseudonym certification authority – at the
masquerade this would be the wardrobe. The pseudonym certification authority has the task to make sure the
C-ITS equipment requesting the certificates is authorised to send C-ITS messages, meaning it is not stolen,
hacked or damaged. It needs to check the authenticity of the C-ITS equipment, but it should not know the
owner. Only if the pseudonym certificate is not directly linked to the owner of the C-ITS equipment can the
C-ITS equipment transmit its messages anonymously. At the wardrobe, this is done by checking the invitations
of the guests, rather than by knowing the guests themselves. Guests are trusted if they have an invitation and
are thus issued a mask necessary to communicate in a trusted fashion with other guests.
The invitation and the host: long-term certificates and long-term authorities
The long-term certificate has the objective of shielding the identity of the owner of the C-ITS equipment. It
stays with the equipment for longer periods of time, just as the invitation is valid for the whole party (whereas
you change masks several times during the party). The long-term certificate of the C-ITS equipment is used to
request pseudonym certificates from the pseudonym certification authority. The pseudonym certification

The limits of existing data protection strategies are being reached. The 21st
century will require a “New Deal
on Data” to fully protect consumers and unleash innovation
The critique of existing data protection frameworks and the divergent set of proposed remedies outlined in
this section 3 highlight the need for an updated approach to personal data ownership as opposed to
protection. Projected changes in data collection technology, coupled with increasing unease over ubiquitous
data collection signal the limitation of incremental approaches. In this context, some have called for a
fundamental reformulation of data protection efforts – a “New Deal on Data” that re-charts the relationship,
respective roles and responsibilities and the nature of interactions between data subjects and producers and
data collectors and users. (Pentland, 2009)
The approach outlined by proponents of the “New Deal on Data” emphasises data subjects’ ownership of
their own data as opposed to ownership granted to data collection entities. In this sense, the “New Deal”
approach proposes granting individuals the same rights over the disposition and use of their data as they
have over their bodies and their money.
New data collection system architectures would be needed to operationalise this approach to data
ownership. Central to these would be the notion of a personal data locker or store. A personal data store
centralises all data associated with a single individual. This individual exercises full and granular control
over access to that data according to their express preferences. This approach changes the current
paradigm of collector-owned data and creates a market for access and use of personal data. Access can be
authority can use it to check the authenticity of the equipment it deals with. The pseudonym certification
authority only knows the long-term certificate. It will not know the owner of the C-ITS equipment or the vehicle
it is installed in or, in the case of roadside equipment, the location where it is installed. The long-term
certificates are issued by the so-called long-term certification authority. In our metaphor this role is taken by
the host. The long-term certification authority is independent from the pseudonym certification authority just
like the wardrobe is independent from the host. The long-term certification authority (the host) knows the
owner of the C-ITS equipment.
Permission to hold the ball by the owner of the house: authorisation and root certification authority
The C-ITS equipment needs to know if the pseudonym certification authority is itself authorised to issue
pseudonym certificates. It does this by checking the status of the pseudonym certification authority’s own
certificate. In our metaphor this would be trust in the owners of the house. They allow the ball to take place in
the first place and condone the distribution of masks in the wardrobe. The root certification authority will issue
each pseudonym certification authority a pseudonym certification authority certificate that is used to produce
the pseudonym certificates. It does this only if the pseudonym certification authority complies with all its
obligations. The root certification authority supervises the various pseudonym certification authorities.
The same counts for the long-term certification authorities. If the long-term certification authority is compliant
with its obligations, the root certification authority will issue each long-term certification authority a long-term
certification authority certificate that the long-term certification authority uses to generate long-term
certificates for the C-ITS equipment. In the masquerade analogy, guests assume that if the host has issued an
invitation, she will have done so with the approval of the house owner.
Every PKI can only have one root certification authority. It publishes the requirements for pseudonym
certification and long-term certification authorities and checks applicants’ suitability to play these roles. It also
controls if existing authorities adhere to the rules.
The house owner: policy authority
In our metaphor it is the house owner who decides that the host may invite friends over and to allow the
distribution of masks from the wardrobe. These decisions are in fact policy decisions. Here the metaphor does
not match exactly, since in a PKI architecture the policy authority is separate from the root certification
authority. The policy authority does not issue any certificates. It defines C-ITS PKI policy, the rules to which the
root certification authority, the pseudonym certification authority and the long-term certification authority
adhere to. It also supervises the root certification authority.

given to third parties that promise sufficient value but, since ownership and control of the data remains
with the data subject, this access can be revoked at any time. This would no-doubt require the
development of new business models for monetising use of this data, but would ensure a robust and
conscious protection of individual privacy preferences16
.
Proponents of the “New Deal on Data” have developed an open source framework for such a personal data
store (openPDS) and are trialling it. Results are promising and include the finding that greater control over
data ownership leads to greater data sharing (seemingly in response to heightened trust that data users will
conform to specific individual wishes in a transparent and auditable manner). (HBR, 2014)
Novel data protection mechanisms can develop around the concept of personal data stores. One such
mechanism – SafeAnswers – promises robust protection of high dimensional personal data, while at the
same time allowing open access to the data itself. (de Montjoye, et al., 2013) This mechanism is built
around data users submitting code snippets that mediate on individuals’ raw data in their personal data
store without releasing any of that data itself. Under a personal data store framework, the SafeAnswers
approach calls for potential data users to submit a request for information regarding an individual’s data.
The question could be “is the individual close to my store?”, “how much time does the individual spend in
traffic on a weekday?” or “does the individual use the underground on weekends? If the individual accepts
that request (perhaps granting this acceptance in return for a service or other form of compensation from
the data user), the data user submits a standardised snippet of code that then interacts with the user’s
personal data store, querying GPS log data, accelerometer data, or other form of location/trajectory data
required to answer the question. The answer is sent back to the data user without sensitive location or
trajectory data ever having been divulged. This approach outlines how novel data ownership rules may be
required before conflicting demands for data protection and increased innovation can be reconciled.
New models of public-private partnership involving data-sharing may be necessary to leverage both public
and private benefits
16
For a full discussion of the operational aspects of the “New Deal on Data”, see (de Montjoye, et al., 2014) and (HBR, 2014).
Under existing data ownership rules a significant amount of the actionable data pertaining to road safety,
traffic management and travel behaviour is held by the private sector. Should data ownership rules
change along the lines of “A New Deal on Data”, individuals would retain ownership and control use of this
data. Under both data ownership frameworks, public authorities will likely continue to be mandated to
provide essential services. In this context, much as public authorities have coercive ability to require
access to personal data (e.g. on property ownership, personal revenue, criminal records), there may be
scope to define public-access data sets that are built on aggregated personal location and trajectory data.
These data could relate to traffic flows, crash locations and causes (as reported by embarked-vehicle ITS
systems), as well as crowd density, location and movement data. This would entail a move away from the
supplier-client relationship that some authorities have with data collectors. Recent moves by some data
collectors to share their data with public authorities (e.g. Uber in the Boston area) show that more
creative partnerships can be developed that enable both the private sector to innovate and the public
sector to carry out its mandates. However, work will be required to define the scope and scale of data
access by public authorities and, in particular, to ensure that the collection of such data is in line with
public mandates.

BIBLIOGRAPHY – 59
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2015-05/Photocredit:wavebreakmedia,shutterstock.com
Understanding and assessing options
This report examines issues relating to the arrival of massive, often
real-time, data sets whose exploitation and amalgamation can lead
to new policy-relevant insights and operational improvements for
transport services and activity. It is comprised of three parts. The first
section gives an overview of the issues examined. The second broadly
characterises Big Data, and describes its production, sourcing and key
elements in Big Data analysis. The third section describes regulatory
frameworks that govern data collection and use, and focuses on issues
related to data privacy for location data.
The work for this report was carried out in the context of a project
initiated and funded by the International Transport Forum’s Corporate
Partnership Board (CPB). CPB projects are designed to enrich policy
discussion with a business perspective. Led by the ITF, work is carried
out in a collaborative fashion in working groups consisting of CPB
member companies, external experts and ITF researchers.

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