Darien To Use Phone Location Data To Identify Speeding Problems

DARIEN, IL – Darien officials agreed Tuesday to spend about $25,000 for a year's subscription to a program that they said would track where speeding problems occur.

But a resident advocating for privacy rights argued against such a program, calling it an "AI-driven surveillance mechanism."

Recently, the city has been using Florida-based Urban SDK's system on a trial basis in a small area of town.

According to the city, Urban SDK's program is based on "anonymized" vehicle GPS data and satellite imagery, according to the firm's website.

The system constantly tracks a town's streets, providing instantaneous information.

Now, when residents complain about speeding on a specific street, the city spends a lot of time and money setting up tracking equipment and extracting data, officials said. And the typical result is finding that no problem exists, they said.

At Monday's City Council meeting, Darien resident Richard Finlay said the program sounds practical, identifying problem areas.

But he said the company is selling drivers' cellphone location data. And he said some contractual provisions indicate the firm has certain rights over the data.

"We should own our own data," Finlay said.

But city officials disagreed.

Alderman Joe Kenny said the system includes no direct identification of drivers. He pointed to his phone to make the case that such devices contain location data.

Finlay interjected, "That's where they're getting it from."

Kenny continued, "If you're really concerned about it, we'll call AT&T. We'll start putting coin-operated phones on the corners again, and you can just get rid of your cellphone. But in the meantime, I'm voting for this because I don't see anything bad with this technology."

City Administrator Bryon Vana added that Urban SDK already has the data, regardless of any agreement Darien enters.

And other officials said that if the data shows someone going three times the speed limit, no information would be available through the system to identify the driver.

The council voted unanimously for a one-year subscription to Urban SDK. Alderman Thomas Belczak was absent.

Earlier in the meeting, residents expressed concerns about the police department's surveillance cameras.