Dutch Police Use TomTom Data To Place Speed Traps
Date: Thursday, April 28 @ 09:00:37 UTC
Topic:
TomTom have made a lot of noise about the rich speed data collected from their customers which has been used to develop IQ Routing and improve route calculations.
But they haven't been shouting about another use for the data. In an article by Dutch newspaper AD, it was revealed that police are using it to help position speed traps in the Netherlands.
The data was made available to local governments and authorities in an effort to help reduce congestion and allow them to plan traffic improvements.
An embarrassed TomTom had not envisaged the speed data being put to this usage and in a statement, released Wednesday, TomTom CEO Harold Goddijn wrote:
"We are now aware that the police have used traffic information that you have helped to create to place speed cameras at dangerous locations where the average speed is higher than the legally allowed speed limit. We are aware a lot of our customers do not like the idea and we will look at if we should allow this type of usage."
With privacy concerns being high on many agendas this week TomTom have said that the data they collect is anonymized. Police are not targeting individuals, instead they are using the historical road speed data to identify roads where speeding may be an issue.
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