Keith N Hampton

The Missouri Department of Transportation is moving forward with a controversial plan to use cell phone data to monitor traffic congestion. Read article. It is unclear from the article if individual subscribers can opt in or out of the program – but it appears not. I expected the adoption of position-aware phones for this purpose, but had always assumed that it would be a private sector initiative with mobile subscribers reimbursed for their data (i.e. free toll road access). I am a little more surprised that a government agency would risk the \’big brother\’ label and overtly use the technology in this way (I expected a bigger backlash). At least location-aware cell phone data has not yet made its way into the hands of car insurance agencies or my local pizza delivery store, as in this video from the ACLU.