On the Data Fight Between Cities and Mobility Providers
This work addresses privacy risks in urban mobility data for city authorities and riders, but is incremental as it builds on existing privacy methods for a specific domain.
The paper argues that Los Angeles's data request for e-scooter usage is unnecessary as existing specifications suffice, and shows that current real-time data publication risks rider privacy; it proposes an algorithm with formal privacy and utility guarantees to address this.
E-Scooters are changing transportation habits. In an attempt to oversee scooter usage, the Los Angeles Department of Transportation has put forth a specification that requests detailed data on scooter usage from scooter companies. In this work, we first argue that L.A.'s data request for using a new specification is not warranted as proposed use cases can be met by already existing specifications. Second, we show that even the existing specification, that requires companies to publish real-time data of parked scooters, puts the privacy of individuals using the scooters at risk. We then propose an algorithm that enables formal privacy and utility guarantees when publishing parked scooters data, allowing city authorities to meet their use cases while preserving riders' privacy.