TH Privacy 8-15

™
™
TheintelligentchoiceforITS
● EXPANDED DIGITAL EDITION with 8 additional articles available at thinkinghighways.com
thinkinghighways.com
Volume 10 Number 2 July 2015
RIDING THE WAVE
GOING FOR BROKE
EVERYTHING IS
ILLUMINATED
The art and science of
transportation engineering,
according to Bob McQueen
Mike McGurrin explains the
benefits of open traffic data
How big data and advanced analytics
are creating new options for everyone
thinkinghighways.com
NORTH AMERICA
EDITION
INTELLIGENT TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS AND ADVANCED TRAFFIC MANAGEMENT
TECHNOLOGY
Assessing the risk: how to
avoid a toll payment security
breach, p34
INNOVATION
What does the rise of Android
Auto mean for the major car
manufacturers in the US? p40
FINANCE & FUNDING
What can the automakers learn
from the financial sector, asks
Sedar LeBarre, p26
SMART CITIES
Tip Franklin: The dangers of
over-focusing on technology
and data, p30
PERCEPTIONS
OF PRIVACYDavid Pickeral wonders if we
have developed an unrealistic
approach to data sharing

thinkinghighways.com4
COVER FEATURE Privacy
Vol 10 No 2 North America
The past two centuries have
seen a positive evolution in
personal privacy doctrine
worldwide for the benefit
of all citizens – but
when it comes to
transportation,
expectation may at
times surpass reality,
says David E Pickeral
Perceptions
of privacy
Vehicles has, to say the least, neither uncomplicated the
question nor discouraged both advocates and detractors of
increased privacy.
Obviously it is an important topic, one that is fundamental
to civilized society anywhere in the world and the legitimate
expectation of each and every one of its both human and
even perhaps nonhuman inhabitants. But is it as daunting
and prohibitive as many have suggested? And, just as com-
pelling, is it really a “new” issue? I would suggest that in
either case the answer is: “Almost certainly not!”
REASONABLE EXPECTATIONS
The Bill of Rights in the US Constitution, specifically the
Fourth Amendment that was enacted 226 years ago and very
much influenced by the Age of Enlightenment, that was all
the rage in the chic circles of Western Civilization at the time,
is generally regarded as one of the key global precedents in
setting boundaries for personal freedoms and privacy. This
P
rivacy. It is often a sensitive, even taboo, subject for
both the public and private sector to address—which
is exactly why I am taking advantage of the fact that I
am on a short respite this summer, not currently constrained
by either a corporate or government employer in terms of
dealing with this subject head-on as an individual, with all
the rights of free speech my government and society afford
(more on this later!).
There is and has always been a lot of talk about Privacy
ITS. As many of us well recall, from the early days at the ITS
America/IVHS Legal Issues Committee meetings at TRB
and in the ITS Caucus and Federal Advisory Act Committee
(FACA) activity on the Hill, the topic of discussion has per-
meated almost any discussion of a new technology, scheme
or system deployment—and it is almost certainly the topic
that most frequently pulls outsiders into examination of
what lamentably is often a very narrow and unrepresenta-
tive view of our industry. The recent emphasis on Connected

thinkinghighways.com 5
Privacy
North America Vol 10 No 2
doctrine was reinforced, adapted and extrapolated by courts,
legislators and regulators at all levels of government over the
years to include both physical and electronic surveillance.1
Throughout the succeeding centuries — and particularly
in the mid to late 20th Century as the potential for mass
repression aided by technology was acknowledged by world
leaders — this doctrine was expanded around the globe
through multinational treaty enactments such as Article 8
of the European Convention of Human Rights (1950)2
and
constitutional amendments such as the Canadian Charter
of Rights and Freedoms (1982)3
. Indeed with the advent of
computerized records in the latter half of the 20th Century,
the concept of personally identifiable information (PII) as
gathered, stored and transmitted using electronic means
was formally addressed and identified as worth of at least
enhanced scrutiny if not enhanced protection.4
There should be absolutely no question to any rational
person that all of these were positive and necessary steps.
Ensuring that both mass and individual abuses of personal
freedoms undertaken the past are not repeated.
Assuring that ever-global, ever-connected
human society continues to evolve in a way
that respects and protects the personal pri-
vacy, dignity and integrity. These are fun-
damentals every person that lives or will
live on Earth has a right to and which as
human beings we have come to expect.
It should be stressed, however, that
the provisions described above and oth-
ers deal with a relatively discrete range of
areas, principally the gathering of evidence
in a criminal prosecution, the integrity of one’s
own body including medical or genetic information,
financial matters — essentially highly personal information
that has the potential to cause significant and specific harm
to an individual with no corresponding benefit to society in
having it disclosed.
So, at the risk of being accused of reductio ad absurdum,
the law rather unambiguously protects one’s right to sit in
one’s own home, hotel room, or other dwelling (including
parked or otherwise stationary vehicles) unmolested, with
one’s documents and possessions (recognized as being legiti-
mately both real and virtual) in this in the absence of any
criminal conduct.
However, most people want to be out and about both
in terms of traveling and engaging in commercial activity
related to the goods they produce or purchase — and around
this distinction herein lies the most critical area of discussion
related to privacy and transportation
CLEAR AND PRESENT
From the start of the Industrial Revolution in the late 18th
Century (ie, around the time the Fourth Amendment was
enacted), there has been almost an immediate acknowledge-
ment that the transportation of both people and goods does
not require or incorporate such highly personal information.
Indeed the benefit has always been perceived in this context
as shifting from the individual to the mutual safety of
hisorherfellowtravelers,orthepublicasaffected
by such systems whether alongside the canal,
near the railroad tracks, beside the motor-
way or under the flight path. Transporta-
tion is after all a highly regulated industry,
perhaps second only to healthcare in that
capacity, and with the same very good rea-
son — SAFETY.
Supportive of that way of thinking, com-
mon carriers—airlines, ferries, railroads, bus
lines—have long been held strictly liable for
the safety of the passengers and goods entrusted
to them with the objective being, again, else safety. In
recognition of that obligation, carriers have commensurably
been afforded a certain degree of control over and access to
information about the people and/or goods they are carry-
ing. Both passenger and freight manifests are compiled with
little question and generally in response to both private con-
“The concept of personally identifiable information as ‘gathered,
stored and transmitted using electronic means’ was formally
addressed and identified as worth of at least enhanced scrutiny if not
enhanced protection”
NOTE
1 Constitution of the United States of America, Amendment IV, 1789; further discussion at http://www.uscourts.gov/
about-federal-courts/educational-resources/about-educational-outreach/activity-resources/what-does-0
2 http://conventions.coe.int/treaty/en/Treaties/Html/005.htm
3 http://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/Const/page-15.html#h-39
4 https://epic.org/privacy/laws/privacy_act.html

tractual and government regulatory requirements.
Switching from carriers to infrastructure operators for per-
sonal travel, the expectations flowing both directions remain
largely the same. Few people question the necessity of requir-
ing, as has been the case virtually all over the world for a
century, the need for vehicles to have number plates or other
physical identifiers. Modern Connected Vehicle legislation
that would add transponders is merely taking, I would sug-
gest, the number plate concept and moving it into the virtual
realminparitywithallotherformsofelectronicidentification.
The same applies to probe data: V2V, V2I, V2X — the
throughput, accessibility and volume of the data flow con-
tinues to increase to be sure, with both industry
and government poised to make far bet-
ter use of it through the Connected
Vehicle mandate and rulemaking
proceeding (National Highway
Traffic Safety Administration)5
and ongoing research (ITS
Joint Program Office).6
Once
again the critical ideal of
Safety is paramount here, as
it is with such initiatives as
Next Generation 9-1-1 (NG
9-1-1)7
, the European eCall8
and grass roots driven public-
private collaboration across
national boundaries such as
Vision Zero.9
However, the idea
that such things as driving behav-
iors, vehicle speed and direction,
surrounding weather conditions, are all
already out there in the public domain.
In all scenarios the objective and benefits are gal-
vanized irrespective of age, income, education or political
orientations in a way that few issues are or ever will be —
the reduction of deaths, now around 30,000 each year on US
roadways,10
nearly 2,000 in Canada11
and well over a million
worldwide.12
RIGHTS, ENTITLEMENTS AND PRIVILEGES
In order to understand how various nuances regarding pri-
vacy and transportation come into play, it is important to dif-
ferentiate between the various levels of expectation that may
be applicable for any given situation.
Rights are the most fundamental and, to use the words of
the American Declaration of Independence, implicate the
most “inalienable” allowances human beings should expect
— and commensurably must be afforded the strictest pro-
tection of the law. These are what significant constitutional
and other legal provisions cited at the beginning of this dis-
cussion were designed to ensure. As suggested they have
relatively little applicable to the communal society of trans-
portation systems and their operations day-to-day.
Rather they tend to apply and very specific situations,
such as the protection of specific PII or those
rare instances where traveler information
is required as part where those rare
instances where traveler information
may be required as part of a crimi-
nal investigation or proceeding.
Above all, the most fundamental
right of any user of a transpor-
tation system is indeed safety,
which is why those some
operate or maintain should
systems are held to such strict
standards of liability.
It is far more likely that
rather than a Right, the traveler
is held to possess a certain Enti-
tlement and even then usually for
quite a specific purpose.
The payment of an airfare or the pur-
chase of a transit pass or toll tag is generally
interpreted to allow the user to access a specific
transportation service for a specific time or distance.
In many countries and societies transportation is viewed as
a very broadly applied entitlement with some segments of
the population including the elderly, economically disad-
vantaged, students or those with disabilities allowed to use
various transportation assets free or at a reduced rate because
society has agreed that it is in the best interest to provide
such benefits.
Finally, and as I think applies to most of the traveling
population and indeed most aspects of the entire transport
NOTE
5 http://www.safercar.gov/v2v/index.html
6 http://www.its.dot.gov/connected_vehicle/connected_vehicle_research.htm
7 http://www.ng911institute.org/
8 http://ec.europa.eu/digital-agenda/en/ecall-time-saved-lives-saved#Article
9 http://visionzeronetwork.org/
10 http://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/Main/index.aspx
11 https://www.tc.gc.ca/eng/motorvehiclesafety/resources-researchstats-menu-847.htm
12 http://www.who.int/gho/road_safety/mortality/en/

“The use of data by transit agencies involves not so much the tracking
of any individual person as it does the aggregation of travel patterns
of all users of the system or system of systems — in other words
demographics”
ecosystem, there is the notion that transportation is a
Privilege. Indeed this concept is so old, that it effectively
dates all the way back to the idea that mobility pretty much
meant that of one’s own two feet, or that of an animal (or
fellow human) that was being ridden or was pulling.
Over the past couple of centuries we seen have the mean-
ing of personal transportation shift to the ability to move
virtually anywhere in the world in the space of a day or two
and perhaps even more remarkably for millions of peo-
ple to traverse throughout regions easily and inexpensively
on a daily basis. Almost as quickly as these developments
occurred, society responded by imposing a certain level
of disclosure to fit the new mobility options, including the
manifests mentioned before and other methods of tracking
all of this public domain activity.
Much as number plates for vehicles have been accepted
practice across North America, Europe and most the rest
of the world for more than a century for anyone wishing
to drive on a public road, a drivers’ license is viewed and
acknowledged by the public as a privilege almost without
question. In exchange for that privilege transportation pro-
viders have a reciprocal expectation that they will be able to
collect or at least temporarily access certain types of infor-
mation from users, to ensure the effectiveness, appropriate
levels of service, and again safety of their operations. Thus,
as between transportation providers and transportation users
there has always been a balancing of rights, privileges, and
entitlements, one between the other. The development of new
technology has automated and optimized that balance, but the
paradigm itself and the responsibilities that go with it has not
really changed all that much since the days of wooden pike
tolling plazas and when traveling in coach meant four wheels
underneath and six horses out front.
GIVE-TO-GET
If anything, the advent of new technology since the start
of the Internet Age has seen an even greater willingness of
travelers to barter some measure of the small privacies to
which they are entitled to achieve some sort of benefit, or
even to volunteer useful information to improve the quality
of service or improve safety for all.
Most users of mobile devices, for instance, seem to appre-
ciate the ability to receive benefits such as an electronic cou-
pon, instant secure payment, or important updates and other
content for products or services they actually like and use
regularly — and are consistently shown to divulge even more
information to ensure that such outreach is ever-more highly
tailored to their specific preferences, from a favorite skim
There are many ways in which
our personal data could be
shared

Privacy
milk no whip half-caf latte sitting on the bar to the preferred
transit route home from work.
In such scenarios the symbiotic relationship between the
user-originator of the data and those who make use of it is
clear and immediate. I would respectfully suggest that the flow
of benefits from Smart & Connected transportation is much
larger and steadily and positively expanding. As nice as a dis-
counted cup of coffee or bus fare is, the potential to mitigate or
remove the possibility that you the rider, or a loved one, will
die in a vehicular collision is, after all, far greater.
DEMOGRAPHICS
It is important for members of the traveling public to appre-
ciate that for the most part – and I’ll talk about the exceptions
later on–transportation service and infrastructure providers
such as transit properties or highway agencies couldn’t care
less about individuals’ personal data.
The plain fact is, such information is not useful to them
inasmuch is their priority is to provide widespread service
availability to the entire population and not customized 1:1
service to individual drivers or passengers. Accordingly they
would have no reason to incur the expense of gathering or
storing or securing and handling (as PII of course) indi-
vidual driver and/or rider data themselves. Thus, the use of
data by such entities involves not so much the tracking of any
individual person as it does the aggregation of travel patterns
of all users of the system or system of systems — in other
words demographics. Thus, such data can be either collected
anonymously such as through Bluetooth reader technol-
ogy, or anonymized, such as can be done with mobile device
information from carriers.
In the most basic terms it’s exceedingly vital in terms of
both service put provision and cost reduction to know
exactly how many people use a certain highway exit, subway
stop, or transit bus route, and what journeys they are tak-
ing through this and other combinations of assets–but there
is no corresponding need or justification to know exactly
who any of these people are by name, bank account, home
address or otherwise.
Of course, there are other elements of the transportation
systemwherecertainmoreidentifiableinformationcanandin
some cases must be used. Mobile network operators (MNO),
including those that will increasingly operate connected vehi-
cle systems, need to know who their users are in order to pro-
vide network access and ensure the flow of the right data both
toandfromsubscribers.Transitandtollingchargepointsneed
Detect. Measure. Analyze.™
irdinc.com | info@irdinc.com INTERNATIONAL ROAD DYNAMICS INC.
Commercial Vehicle Enforcement
Toll Systems
Data Services
Fleet Management
Bridge Monitoring & Safety
Security & Access Control

to identify for a very brief instant that the correct account user
is passing through that part of the system.
Here the “give to get” again becomes apparent. In these
cases, it is important to remember that the users have already
provided specific consent, in effect granting either an entitle-
ment or privilege to use their data. In signing their agree-
ments, wireless customers have done so almost universally as
long as there have been cell phones, which is now approach-
ing half a century. The users of stored value, and now open
payment transit and tolling systems, have likewise granted
the operator and/or some third-party payments processing
entity such as a credit card the entitlement to access their
data for the reciprocal entitlement the convenience of instant
electronic payment offers. As a result, the issue of privacy
as to the transportation providers themselves once again
becomes largely moot.
PRIVACY IN PRACTICE
To illustrate how all this works I will offer a hypothetical soon
to be taking place all over the world – perhaps even tomorrow:
Kwame is driving by himself down the turnpike in his state
(or province) and the RUC system, maintained under contract
by a third party vendor under a PPP, automatically records
his vehicle’s identity from its installed transponder (as indeed
is required by recent connected vehicle regulations enacted
nationally in his country). As he is driving he passes a traf-
fic counter that recently replaced the old loop detector based
system – his Bluetooth signal anonymously registers the pas-
sage of the vehicle past a certain point, and again later past a
different point to judge speed and traffic flow, identifying the
vehicle as the same one passing a number of different points,
but obtaining no information about the identity of the vehicle
or its driver and passengers (or in this case the lack thereof).
As he pulls off at a service plaza he is offered an electronic
coupon for his favorite coffee company based on the prefer-
ence he selected as a member of that coffee’s loyalty club and
while in the service plaza purchases that beverage using the
electronic wallet feature of the coffee company’s app which
he downloaded and installed onto his mobile device.
As he exits the turnpike the turnpike’s back office system
matches his vehicle’s identity obtained from his vehicle’s
onboard transponder to charge his credit card the appropri-
ate amount per the electronic payments agreement he set up
with the tolling company in the adjacent state where he lives;
Specific consent is given to use personal data where payments are required, but data is often shared in anonymized form

Privacy
that state has reciprocal interoperability with the turnpike
on which he is now traveling among many others (and as
he is aware through his home state’s tolling agreement which
he accepted in setting up his account). The anonymized
data from the tolling system and the anonymously con-
nected Bluetooth data are provided to the turnpike authority
along with that of every other user so that they can analyze
and optimize the systems and services along the roadway.
Beyond the user-specific services offered to Kwame and
many others who choose to accept them, the coffee vendor
also uses anonymized information in aggregation with all of
the customers at that service plaza to ensure that the prod-
ucts and services provided are even more tailored to what all
customers stopping there will want in the future thus antici-
pating the personal preferences of those who do not wish to
self-identify for promotions. When Kwame gets to his desti-
nation city, he uses the transponder to pay for parking in the
space that his vehicle’s navigation system guides him to. The
parking system, which is also connected to his home state’s
RUC account through another reciprocal agreement to sup-
port transportation account services, further consolidates
what had been many different stovepiped processes.
Kwame then meets his friend Yukiko and they go out to
meet their university mate Pat for dinner. Like a growing
number of urban residents Yukiko does not own a car. How-
ever, in front of her apartment is a line of share-cars that she
is able to access and pay for with her mobile device using an
account she established with the share-car vendor that can
be used with a network of other vendors around the country
and internationally. After driving to dinner she deposits the
share-car near the restaurant so a different user can have it.
The restaurant even provided a rebate on her share-car rental
“The advent of new technology since the start of the Internet Age has
seen an even greater willingness of travelers to barter some measure
of the small privacies to which they are entitled to achieve some sort
of benefit”

fee when she booked a table for herself, Kwame and Pat using
the mobile app.
After dinner, Pat, who had ridden over on a city bike when
it was still daylight, walks home while Yukiko and Kwame
decide that they have had too much wine to safely drive.
Both of them therefore take transit back to Yukiko’s apart-
ment–she using her regular open payments AFC application
that she maintains as a resident of that city, and he is able to
use his transportation access account from the adjacent state
that has reciprocal privileges with Yukiko’s city transit opera-
tor. The bikeshare system, share-car vendor and the transit
property compile and are able to anonymously use the usage
data from the evening to improve their service and ensure
that both modes in the transit service are able to meet the
needs of citizens and users.
A few weeks later, Yukiko receives an electronic invoice
from the share-car company. While she and Kwame were
driving to dinner downtown, they passed a congestion
charge cordon; the ANPR system there captured the vehi-
cle’s license plate and sent the charge to the share-car owner
along with the exact date and time of passage. The share-car
company paid the congestion charge to the city along with
any others due for its fleet. The share-car company’s software
correctly identified Yukiko as the person in possession of
the car at that date and time, charged her account, and sent
her an invoice documenting payment under the terms of the
rental whereby she had agreed to ‘auto pay’ any tolls or fines
incurred during her rental.
At no time was any PII regarding Yukiko – who not own-
ing a car herself did not maintain a city congestion charge tag
or account – exchanged between the share-car company and
the city government.
In the above hypothetical, the only entities that have
access to financial information are modes of choice and/or
payments processing entities, all of which did so with the
specific consent of Pat, Kwame and Yukiko. These entities
correspondingly have no information regarding where their
journeys took them beyond the discrete points of sale (POS)
for RUC, parking, transit entities, and c-charging just as
they would if they had swiped or dipped their charge cards
in these places. Conversely the turnpike, city congestion
charge authority and transit property each obtained precise
demographic data, as they did from every other customer,
anonymized and in all respects transactionally separated
from any of the financial information or other PII which was
simply not relevant or needed by them.
REACHING FOR PERFECTION
My discussion here has of course only scratched the surface
of a complex and constantly evolving field of law and/or
policy (the differences between these two incidentally being
yet another vastly complex subject for perhaps another time
and even a different forum). However, as I have asserted in
previous issues of Thinking Highways regarding other areas
of ITS, the fundamental concepts are inherently simple
and come down to basic government, industry and soci-
etal choices about the give-to-get of data and information.
The main point I wish to make is that Smart & Connected
Transportation technology offers unprecedented benefits
with correspondingly little if any additional sacrifice of that
body of private information which fundamentally entitled to
the highest levels of protection. This result can and will be
achieved using data that individual passengers either never
had the right/entitlement to hold private in the first place,
or data that they voluntary have provided in exchange for a
certain privilege. The potential for the protection of life and
property for everyone affected by the transportation system
is simply too great. It creates revenue streams for industry,
achieving important policy goals for governments and ben-
efits for society right down to the needs and wants of each
individual citizen. I have heard this described among other
things as a “Nirvana.” Perhaps this perfect state of being, this
optimal balance is too much to expect amidst the fast chang-
ing, political undercurrents, and competing interests of ITS,
but a “Trifecta” may be a more apt aspiration: a quick win
with an immediate payoff.
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 David E Pickeral, Esq is an executive, senior analyst and
industry advisor in Smart & Connected transportation
systems based in the sustainable community of
Reston, Virginia, USA. He has more than 27 years of
leadership experience in both public and private sector
roles around the world. David’s current focus is helping
investors, implementers and practitioners realize the
potential to integrate current and next generation ICT
technology and ensuring the adoption of enhanced
business practices and analytics to optimize existing
and future transportation assets across all modes. He
is also a licensed attorney, and member of both the
Virginia and District of Columbia Bars.
 david.pickeral@alumni.virginia.edu
www.linkedin.com/in/pickeral
“The bikeshare system, share-car vendor and the transit property
compile and anonymously use the usage data from the evening to
improve their service and ensure that both modes in the transit
service are able to meet the needs of citizens and users”

TH Privacy 8-15

More Related Content

What's hot

Viewers also liked

Similar to TH Privacy 8-15

More from David Pickeral

TH Privacy 8-15