Should police have access to drivers’ sat nav data?

I think most of the commenters so far may be missing the point as to why Tom-Tom’s behaviour is either objectionable – or not objectionable – in selling data to the police.

Consider first, precisely what the data is that Tom-Tom are selling to the Dutch government. It is the speed profile of a group of drivers on a particular road, probably indexed to time slots during a 24 hour period, and to the day of the week. By “speed profile” I mean that they get the number of drivers doing between 0 and 10 kph, the number doing between 10 and 20 kph, the number doing between 20 and 30kph, and so on. The exact speeds that define each “bin” may of course differ from those I have suggested, i.e. it might be 0-5, 5-10, 15-20, etc or something else.

So if the speed limit on a particular road at location x is say, 40kph, they government find out what percentage of all drivers are doing less than 40kph, and what percentage are doing more than 40kph, i.e. exceeding the speed limit. They can probably also work out what percentage are exceeding it slightly (e.g. 40 – 50kph) and what percentage are really belting along as though there were no limit at all (e.g. >50kph). They will probably also know what day of the week and what time of day the speed limit is likely to be broken on a large scale.

Clearly, this information is very handy indeed for deciding whether to put a speed camera at a particular spot, if your aim is to maximise the income you get from speeding fines. Putting in a camera will cost z euros. You should be able to work out (very roughly perhaps) how many months of fines you will need to recoup your outlay of z euros. This is just what the police would need to justify the expenditure on a speed camera to the beancounters who control the purse strings.

They will probably also be able to factor into their calculations the effect of just putting a speed camera at location x will have on the behaviour of drivers. Many drivers automatically slow down as soon as they are aware of a camera – for obvious reasons – and if they do so, the police are denied the fine they would have otherwise imposed on those drivers. So they will get less income than if speeding motorists were entirely unaware of the camera.

So far so good. But there is a snag here which is not immediately obvious. And that is that from the data Tom-Tom provides it is impossible to tell whether the group of speeding drivers contains just one individual or lots of individuals. And they can’t tell that because Tom-Tom aggregates the data (I am of course taking what Tom-Tom claim at face value – and it may be that Tom-Tom know perfectly well how many drivers are involved). And if its just one driver involved in speeding on lots of different occasions, then its unlikely the police can fine him/her for each speeding incident – so again their income may be a lot less than first thought.

Some of us might maintain that slowing down speeding drivers is a “good thing”, regardless of the amount of money that has to be spend to do it – i.e. they don’t care whether the camera pays its way. The beancounters probably won’t agree with them, of course.

Clearly in countries like Holland and the UK, the income from a proposed camera will be a lot lower because of this effect of its mere presernce on driver behaviour. In a country like France, where apparently the cameras are entirely hidden and undetectable by any driver, fines will be collected like they are going out of fashion. Obviously word will get around, sooner or later, at least in the local community, that there is a speed camera at location x, and eventually this will have some effect on the behaviour of local drivers in the know.

So, we might ask ourselves now whether this it is legitimate for Tom-Tom to sell data that we (the drivers) have generated to governments, or government agencies like the police? At one level, it is clearly legal – no laws are being broken, since the drivers have agreed (in some form) to allow this data to be used by Tom-Tom as they see fit. And note – there is no question of information about the behaviour of **individual** drivers being passed on by Tom-Tom. They are very careful to state that all data is aggregated and anonymised before they do anything with it all. So we are talking here purely about the behaviour of **groups of drivers**. So we are definitely not in the territory of breaking any kind of Data Protection laws here.

But is there a moral problem with Tom-Tom’s actions? By speeding, an unknown group of drivers are breaking the law. There is no way of knowing who is in that group, nor even where the individuals in that group were coming from or going to, when they were speeding at location x.

It seems to me that if we consider a different, but related, situation it wil become clear to us that there really is no moral problem with the police having this data, and using it to decide whether to fit a speed camera at location x. The similar situation I am considering is burglaries in a town. The police find out where, and when burglaries occur because each householder who has been burgled reports their incident. What the police glean from this data is some idea of the number of burglars operating in that town. But if there are 100 burglaries in a year in the town, they are unable to work out from this data whether they have 100 different burglars operating in the town, or whether they have 1 burglar carrying out 100 burglaries in 100 different properties. In that sense the burglary data is identical to the data Tom-Tom provides on speeding drivers – there may be 1000 speeding “incidents” in a year, but this could be due to 1000 different speeding drivers, or one maniac driver who has broken the limit 1000 times in that year! It is probably impossible to tell – depending on exactly how Tom-Tom do the aggregation of the data they receive – and whether they are telling us the full truth or not.

Leaving aside our “ifs and buts” here, we can say that the police now have some information on burglary rates, which allows them to decide when and where to step up their policing presence – in the hope of catching this burglar (or burglars) breaking the law. This increased police presence costs money of course, so our bean counters will be most anxious to see that the money is well spent.

BUT the important point here is no-one (I hope) would have a moral problem with the police using their information they have gathered on burglaries, and as a result, stepping up their presence in the expectation that they will catch one or more burglars. We are much more likely to say “This is exactly what we expect the police to do, and we wish them luck with the venture”.

So, taking the step where we equate lawbreakers Type A (i.e. “burglars”) with lawbreakers Type B (i.e. speeding motorists), I think the obtaining and use of the data is equivalent in both situations, and equally acceptable in both situations.

But here at least one other commenter will object. And the objection will go along these lines. Surely the problem is that with burglars, no-one is **selling** any information to anyone. We, the victims, report the crime to the police – free of charge – and the police then act (or don’t act) as they see fit. And with the speeding motorists the situation is entirely different – because here we have a middle man (Tom-Tom) who is gathering the data provided to them free of charge – and then selling this information to the police (via the government).

What are Tom-Tom doing here? We know they are gathering data for free – then selling it on in a different format (i.e. aggregated). They are providing a service – to the police – and to us, the motorists. And I think when anyone provides a service, charging for that service is a perfectly normal – and fully accepted practice throughout all developed societies.

WHAT? you may say?? How can Tom-Tom be “providing a service” to me a motorist? I am not a victim of those other motorists who break the speed limit, am I? Well, you probably are. Or you may well be at some future date, if you have not been one already. How so? Well, first of all, speeding motorists are a danger to other motorists on the same road. They cause head-on crashes with oncoming traffic when they think they can overtake safely – when they cannot. If you happen to be that “oncoming motorist” – you are definitely a victim. Very likely a dead one.

Motorists are also pedestrians and cyclists (particularly in the Netherlands). Speeding motorists are serious hazard to both groups of people for obvious reasons that I shouldn’t need to spell out.

So – to conclude. I don’t believe Tom-Tom have done anything either illegal or immoral in charging for the service they provide to governments (and thence to the police) in providing aggregated data on the lawbreaking section of the public.

Richard

P.S. The above is not the conclusion I wanted to reach when I started writing this comment. I find I have an “emotional” objection to Tom-Tom selling “my data” which I gave them for free. But intellectually, I find that objection without any basis. I operate on the assumption that emotions should not control what I think or what actions I take. I prefer my actions to be based solely on sound reasoning – which I hope I have provided for everyone above.