The privacy of Dunedin motorists is not on the line, as long as data collected by a planned network of new traffic monitoring sensors is handled responsibly, the Privacy Commissioner’s office says.
The comment came yesterday, a day after the Dunedin City Council announced it would spend $150,000 on a new network of 44 pole-mounted traffic monitoring sensors expected to be installed by Christmas.
The sensors — running the AddInsight system developed in Adelaide — worked by detecting Bluetooth in-car devices and tracking them from one location to another, although the information collected would be anonymous.
The aim was to better understand traffic flows in the city and help inform future decisions about changes to the roading network, DCC transport engineering and road safety team leader Hjarne Poulsen said.
A spokesman for the Privacy Commissioner’s office said yesterday there did not appear to be any privacy issues arising from the new system.
The Privacy Act dealt with personal information, and if information was aggregated and anonymised "it is no longer information about identifiable individuals", he said.
Despite that, the use of population and commuter data for planning purposes was an "increasing trend", in New Zealand and elsewhere, as part of the move towards smart cities.
"Naturally this does create privacy challenges, but not if it is handled well with the privacy of individuals as a central consideration," he said.
Associate Prof David Eyers, of the University of Otago’s department of computer science, said the quality of "technical implementation" would usually determine "whether or not there’s a potential privacy issue".
That included how much raw data was stored, and where it was stored, before it was anonymised, he said.
"As far as I understand it though, this type of electronic vehicle traffic monitoring is fairly common worldwide, and it is likely to have well tried and tested implementations."
Ministry of Transport staff referred questions about the new system’s privacy considerations to the NZ Transport Agency.
NZTA staff did not respond by deadline, while Dunedin City Council staff could not answer questions yesterday.
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While I agree the monitoring is potentially an ideal way to better understand our traffic flow in Dunedin, my only real concern here is based on this statement-
"NZTA staff did not respond by deadline, while Dunedin City Council staff could not answer questions yesterday."
Which would have me asking, were the privacy implications and process researched and understood before DCC wrote the cheque and went ahead with the idea?
Like the cycle lanes, and the 3000k LED street lights, not much research done before the cheque is written. DO YOUR JOLLY RESEARCH DCC!!! we're not lab rats!