Adrian An loves zipping through downtown Sacramento on electric scooters. But sharing data with the city about his rides? That’s a different story.
“They [might] be tracking where I’m at all the time. I don’t know, it’s like an invasion of privacy,” he said.
Some cities — like Sacramento and Los Angeles — already plan to collect this information. The proposal in Los Angeles sparked controversy about the data collection amounting to government surveillance. But city officials say the data can’t be traced to individual riders.
An Assembly bill could expand this practice of ride data collection. Under the proposal, cities could require companies to hand over ride data if they want to do business there.
The proposal has drawn criticism from privacy advocates, like the Electronic Frontier Foundation. In response, the bill was recently amended: Cities could request only aggregate data that has been scrubbed of identifying information.
Bill Romanelli, a shared bike user in Sacramento, says the proposal doesn’t bother him.
“I think if it’s data that helps cities increase mobility and reduce traffic and help people get from A to B, then I don’t have a negative feeling about that,” Romanelli said.
The bill awaits a vote on the Assembly floor.
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