Finns To Use Cell Phones To Monitor Traffic Jams

Okko writes "The Finnish Road Administration announced it is going to use cellphone location data to find out about traffic jams. They say they are using the location data available from the GSM base stations to determine the locations and speeds of vehicles carrying mobile phones. The information will be used to inform people about traffic jams and peaks in traffic trough public FM radio stations. Until now, the information about traffic has been gathered using car sensors embedded in the roads. The spokesperson of FRA, interviewed in the evening news of MTV3 Finland, seemed very pleased they can monitor cell phones even when no calls are made, it is enough the phone has power on. They said they are about to use the information anonymously and thought people approve it as long as it is done in an anonymous and "everyone-wins" way. It was told they do not currently tell the police about the data they discover as the current law forbids this. So, it is not, at least yet, possible to fine people carrying mobile phones in their cars too fast on public roads (exceeding the speed limit of the road). Unfortunately, probably because of vacations, FRA has not updated their website accordingly yet. There does exist an annoucement about testing the technology from the summer. "

Might improve safety

[Moderation abuser]

After all, nobody is going to believe that speeding information won't be passed to the police, despite any laws currently in place, therefore, they may well switch off their bloody phones rather than weave randomly across lanes of traffic when making or answering a call the way they do at the moment.

Fox guarding henhouse

[Anonymous Coward]

The trouble with relying on laws to prevent government abuse, is that it's the government which has the power to change those laws. Give them the technical capability to violate your privacy, and sooner or later they will do so, possibly in ways not to your liking...eg., the Japanese Americans who trusted the legal safeguards on census data, then got rounded up during WWII.

As Long as it's Anonymous

[Oculus Habent]

There shouldn't be any problems as long as the system remains anonymous - hell, they may even be able to inform the police which areas and times have the highest incidence of speeding to improve their ability to ticket people - nothing a radar gun sitting on the side of the road can't do...

At any rate, I would keep an eye on the anonymity of the whole thing - I wouldn't want a ticket showing up form my highway driving.

An attack on privacy

[anarchima]

This is yet another part of the system being built up around civilian populations in the West. Perhaps you haven't noticed, but lately (as in the last 5-10 years) new technologies have emergies which on their own might not seem to affect your privacy much. Things like credit cards, email, telephone banking, THE INTERNET, satellites, and more are all capable of spying on you. Sorry for sounding like such a paranoid person, but if all these devices were coordinated we could all be watched. The Big Brother is out there, and this is just another step in the wrong direction...Does anyone actually believe that this sort of information isn't being used (or can easily be used) against you?

Privacy

[Kajakske]

This is all very interesting, but as stated before, there is a privacy risk involved with this. Not only can you actually track where a user goes, you can also track who he is with.

Another point is, who knows how many cell phones are in 1 car ? If you have several cars with 4 people in it, all having there cell phone turned on, then it might look like a traffic jam, or at least very condensed traffic, but it might not be the case.
Or the opposite. If they take an average of 2 phones per car, and it's work time and there are like only people with 1 person in the car, it might look like fluid traffic where there is a jam.

Re:just Great.

[WPIDalamar]

Don't think that would fly in the US ... here, speeding tickets are giving to individuals, not phones. The prosecuting attorney could prove my phone went 100mph, but not me. Maybe I lent it to someone else?

Traffic Jams in buildings?

[Qzukk]

What happens when everyone starts getting to work? Most buildings are within a few dozen feet of a road... will they be able to tell a building full of cellphones from a road full of cellphones?

Drug testing and traffic monitoring

[Anonymous Coward]

We are drug testing people at work, to catch people committing illegal behaviour on their free time. But speeding is a crime too! In fact, it kills more people than drugs. So, why have we not installed a small sensor into every car? That way the employer could check that the employee has not driven too fast, the employer could check that no crime has been committed!

After all, would YOU trust a person who breaks the law to be a part of YOUR business!

Re:As Long as it's Anonymous

[GigsVT]

I wouldn't want a ticket showing up form my highway driving.

The question then is, "Why even have laws at all?". The police are charged with enforcing the law. Period. They aren't supposed to be de facto judge and jury though selective enforcement, no matter how many of them try to usurp that power. Law enforcement's goal, in theory, is 100% enforcement of the law.

Of course that raises practical problems, because everyone is a criminal. The laws in most places are written in such a way that anyone can be arrested at any time, because everyone is breaking some law. This is leveraged by governments constantly to supress people they don't like. The problem isn't really about privacy, it's about laws that make everyone arrestable. We need to fix the laws so that only real criminals can be arrested, not prevent enforcement.

Re:So you've decided to live off the grid

[stoops]

exactly how is cash more traceable than bartering? you'd think if i used cattle from my farm rather than cash, there'd be more dna evidence in my barn linking that cow back to me than there is on that 5 dollar bill. what's your reasoning?

Re:An attack on privacy

[snillfisk]

Just a comment about how the current situation is, they're currently using embedded sensors in the road. How can you be so sure about the fact that these sensors may just as well register the license plate of your car? A small X10-cam sitting by the road and just grabbing images of licensing plates as they go by? Just set up a couple of these, and you have the same effect. The current solution could probably be tampered with just as much as this one - and I would probably say that the new solution is a lot better than the current one. If its there, use it! If you're moving around in public space, there's always a risk of getting registered and surveillanced, even if you take all possible measures. Get a non-registered phone or something .. after all, if you really were paranoid, you wouldnt move in public spaces or carry a cell phone.

Re:So they say they,ll use the info anonymously..

[sopuli]

We telecom related privacy violations very seriously [europemedia.net] in Finland.

Speeding tickets - not likely; privacy, no change

[ronys]

I seriously doubt that the information is accurate enough to convict a driver of speeding. The poster wrote that the intended use is monitoring traffic jams - this means using statistical methods that average out errors. Saying that the traffic is flowing at X km (miles) per hour is very different from saying that cellphone C is moving at speed Y.

As to privacy, the location of each cellphone is already available to law enforcement (even if powered off), so there's no real difference. If you really want to drive to your lover for an afternoon, be sure to remove the battery from your cellular...

Re:Might improve safety

[arivanov]

This is GSM, not CDMA. It has a limit on the timing advance which puts a well defined limit on the "remoteness". As a result people do not use directed antennas at all.

Re:Traffic Jams

[ComaVN]

I wonder how much of my life I have wasted sitting in the car, surrounded by idiots.

Reminds me of some graffiti I saw on a wall next to a highway, which (roughly translated) said: "You're not IN a traffic jam, you ARE the traffic jam."

Re:So they say they,ll use the info anonymously..

[arivanov]

Nothing actually holds them to their word on this.

Do you think that Finland is a village in Alabama or something? Finland is a civilised country. And as such it has data protection regulations and telecoms laws you have hardly dreamed of. In order to get to that data police need

• 1. A court warrant on a specific person
• 
  2. Having obtained the court warrant they can start recording only the specific subset they have been granted access to.
  3. They have no access to any prior data except the last 60 days of billing (and nothing but billing).
  4. Any non-billing data that can personally identify an individual may not be retained by the telecom operator and is immediately destroyed after operational use.

Germany and other EU countries have similar laws. There are exemptions of course. Like the UK.

But overall, the police cannot get to any data of practical interest for the prosecution of minor misdemanors.