United States Department of Transportation
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Advancing Data Utility While Mitigating Privacy Risk [fact sheet]
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2021-02-01
[PDF-1.80 MB]
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Abstract:Transportation safety and mobility applications rely on time-sequenced location data. However, there is a risk of unauthorized parties using such data to discover an individual’s travel patterns. To prevent this from happening, organizations often limit data releases. But these limitations often cause unintended consequences, including reducing open sharing of transportation data and the associated benefits, such as improved safety and operational efficiency. Moreover, simply deleting identifiers such as names and addresses from the data does not eliminate the possibility that drivers’ identities could be inferred from their travel patterns. There is a better way. The U.S. Department of Transportation has developed a method to limit risk of traveler identification using a combination of map data and information theory. The result is context-specific strategies for hiding sensitive location and route information. This approach preserves precise location data characteristics that are necessary for effective safety and mobility applications. However, it removes the risk of the data unintentionally revealing any individual’s travel patterns – protecting personal privacy. Moreover, it maintains high-quality data capable of supporting improved transportation operations and planning.
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