Cities Shouldn’t Sell Traffic Data

June 19 (Bloomberg) -- In the midst of new revelationsabout federal government surveillance, cities are increasingtheir own monitoring programs: using traffic cameras to fightspeeding. The result is that cities have ever more informationabout how and where we drive.

The issue is what cities should do with all that data. Thatquestion is anything but hypothetical: At the Clinton GlobalInitiative America gathering last week in Chicago, the centralconcern of the infrastructure task force was the desire forinnovative revenue streams, possibly including traffic cameradata, to pay for much-needed new projects. Google Inc.’srecently announced $1.1 billion acquisition of Waze, a trafficapplication, adds a new twist to the debate, by giving us a hintof just how valuable such data might be.