Page 50 - TrafficInfratech Magazine Feb - Mar 2020

SMART MOBILITY

Creating value with open data,

without compromising anonymity

Here Technologies’, Aleksandra

Kovacevic, Senior Engineering Manager
reflects on the need for careful
consideration in encouraging the
sharing of data for improved mobility

services.

hen it comes This has only been heightened with not constitute anonymisation, as it
to data privacy, the arrival of global privacy laws, is still possible to trace back to the
location data including Europe’s GDPR. user. When a user travels, his/her
has one of the However, to effectively protect device does not necessarily generate
Wmost complex the privacy of location data isolated data points. Travelling from
facets. The potential physical safety specifically, it is not enough to just one place to another produces a
implications as a consequence of comply with GDPR regulation. If the whole sequence of locations and
potential privacy breach, as well as services of the future are to bring timestamps that come together to
the ability of devices to constantly together different stakeholders chart a path on a map. This whole
track their users, brings with it to draw on information from sequence, called a trajectory, can be
particular sensitivities. multiple data sources, it is vital that particularly revealing – it is what can
Vehicles, mobile operators and companies open their data and make this category of confidential
smartphone apps are the most likely make it available for collaboration. data more complex to manage over
to track users’ location, which could others.
make some feel uncomfortable. Depersonalisation does Although a company can delete all
Consumers should take comfort, not guarantee anonymity personal information from its data
however, from knowing that most In the area of location data privacy, points at any time, it is also possible
companies rely on location data only users of applications and services for anyone – including third parties
to create safer and smarter services. may think that deleting personal – to add other publicly available
It is in their interest, therefore, to information preserves anonymity. associated data to these trajectories
promote responsible data capture. Depersonalisation, however, does and then use this combination of

50 February-March 2020 / TrafficInfraTech www.trafficinfratech-com-500653.hostingersite.com