Protecting Location Privacy

An overall picture of policies relevant to data collection and use in the private locational environment highlights the gaps that may be evident between the privacy recommendations of regulatory and industry guidance agencies and individual company policies.

Abstract

With the growing trend toward location-based services in transportation, the collection and the use of traveler data have grown rapidly. With the potential for multiagency sharing of data and an increased public-private partnerships, inconsistencies in how data are collected and shared may become of growing concern for users, particularly given the potential sensitivity of locational data. An overall picture of policies relevant to data collection and use in the private locational environment highlights the gaps that may be evident between the privacy recommendations of regulatory and industry guidance agencies and individual company policies. The approach combines policy and content analysis to determine how well identified privacy considerations are reflected in user-oriented privacy policies.