“Smart” transit tech collects a wide range of data about how residents move about their city on foot, bike, car, and mass transit. The data can make public transit work better in theory, but it often fails commuters in practice. Not only do these systems fall short of the marketing hype, they provide sensitive data to law enforcement. This guide will help you guide your community toward safe, equitable, and just policies for transit data.
DESIGN PRINCIPLES
1. Preventing police cooption
Transit data should be used to meet transit needs only and should be kept safe from the police.
2. Needs first, data second
Cities should collect and store only the data they need to meet identified transit needs.
3. Community engagement
Data should only be collected after consulting the community about its transit needs.
4. Transparency and public oversight
Cities should publicly announce how they collect, use, and protect transit data.
5. Equity
Transit data should be used to make public transit more accessible: for example, to improve access to jobs and to healthcare.
6. Data minimization and privacy-protective data aggregation
Cities should collect only the transit data they need and take steps to prevent that misuse of that data.
7. Weighing opportunity costs
Before purchasing expensive “smart” tech, cities should consider investing those funds in better transit infrastructure, such as road repairs or newer buses.
