Big Data

Sharing Is Not Always Easy – An Analysis of Sharing Data Between the Public and Private Sectors

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Picture1By Isaac Prevost

Traffic data plays an important role for public agencies concerned with traffic management and infrastructure. We’re seeing private companies collect more and more of this data, occasionally resulting in partnerships between governments and those private companies. However, whether these partnerships will stave off an increased interest in regulatory requirements of private data disclosure remains to be seen.

Federal, state, and local governments collect significant traffic data about traffic patterns and use of roadway system. The collection methods used by governmental entities range from interconnected sensors along the road to government employees manually tallying vehicle occupancies. This information is then used to analyze infrastructure needs, improve public transportation routes, and provide real-time traffic information to the public. In recent years however, there has also been a substantial uptick in the amount of traffic data collected by private companies. This is occurring with the prevalence of ride-sharing companies, increasingly-automated cars, and mapping applications such as Google Maps.

So, just how are public transportation agencies utilizing these new sources of data? Waze, a GPS navigation software owned by Google, launched the Connected Citizens Program in 2014 that shares traffic and road information with public entities for free. Agencies that partner with them participate in a two-way exchange of traffic data, giving Waze information on road closures and incidents. This private data supplements the government’s data, providing better information on functions such as the timing of traffic signals or the dispatch of emergency vehicles.

An alternative example of these partnerships can be found between Strava Metro and public agencies, where the agency pays for access to the data. Strava, a popular application for runners and cyclists, gives the public entities access to the their users’ running and cycling routes.  The Oregon Department of Transportation pays $20,000 per year for access to the data. Information from Strava Metro was a factor in the decision to restrict cars from Portland’s Tilikum Crossing bridge. These types of collaborations are just a small sample of how private data is increasingly being used in public planning.

However, even though the voluntary sharing of private data with public entities has become more common, it has not happened without its hurdles. While governments may be eager to use the data that companies like Waze or Strava are willing to share or sell, tensions have arisen when a company like Uber is reluctant to turn over data or withholds certain customer information. A partnership between Uber and the City of Boston in 2015 resulted in underwhelming results because Uber only disclosed the zip codes for the start and end location of an Uber user’s ride. A city official explained that the location information was not specific enough to be useful for urban planning.

Instead of pursuing partnerships, some cities have required data information from ridesharing companies in exchange for their license to operate in the area. In January 2017, the New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission requested all passenger pick-up and drop-off information from ride-sharing companies such as Uber and Lyft. Uber publicly objected to the proposal, citing the privacy of their drivers, but the Commission kept the requirement. The City expressed interest in the value of Uber’s data for traffic planning and analysis, as well as a tool for preventing drivers from working beyond their permitted total of work.

Possibly in an effort to appease regulators, Uber launched Uber Movement this year, which aggregates and anonymizes Uber’s ride data to show the traffic flows of various cities. In their FAQs section, Uber Movement states that the launch of the site was partially due to feedback from government agencies that “aggregated data will inform decisions about how to adapt existing infrastructure and invest in future solutions to make our cities more efficient.” One of their pilot reports tracked how a metro shutdown in Washington D.C. affected travel times in the city. The New York Times labeled this website “an olive branch to local governments.”

Uber Movement formally launched in August. As it gains more and more data on various cities, it could provide an interesting case study: what amount and type of private traffic data are governmental entities hoping to access? Will the availability of this data stave off further local and state regulations? Partnerships between governments and private companies are becoming more and more common, but the success or failure of Uber Movement may provide some insight into what lies ahead for these types of partnerships.

 

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Are My Emails Beyond the Grasp of the U.S. Government?

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gavelBy Mackenzie Olson

Companies like Microsoft and Google store a lot of customer data in storage centers overseas. As of July 2016, 2nd Circuit precedent indicated that, due to the foreign location of those centers, the U.S. government could not compel these companies to turn over data, even by issue of a search warrant. The case that rendered this decisions was In the Matter of Warrant to Search a Certain E–Mail Account Controlled and Maintained by Microsoft Corporation. (But also take note of the dissent in the denial of en banc review). As the Southern District of New York adjudicated the Warrant case, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals was its final arbiter. Accordingly, the Court of Appeals’ judgment only controlled as precedent in that jurisdiction. And though its opinion has been persuasive elsewhere, at least one judge, based in the Third Circuit, now disagrees with its outcome.

On February 3, 2017, Magistrate Judge Thomas J. Rueter of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania issued an opinion and subsequent orders compelling Google to turn over certain data stored in overseas facilities, per the request of two previously issued search warrants.

In his opinion, Judge Rueter explains that, “the present dispute centers on the nature and reach of the warrants issued pursuant to section 2703 of the Stored Communications Act, 18 U.S.C. §§ 2701 (“SCA”).

He frames the relevant issues as follows: “The court must determine whether the [g]overnment may compel Google to produce electronic records relating to user accounts pursuant to search warrants issued under section 2703 of the SCA, or in the alternative, whether Google has provided all records in its possession that the [g]overnment may lawfully compel Google to produce in accordance with the Second Circuit’s ruling.” Rueter ultimately holds that “compelling Google to disclose to the [g]overnment the data that is the subject of the warrants does not constitute an unlawful extraterritorial application of the [SCA].”

In its reporting of the decision, news outlet Reuters particularly emphasizes Judge Rueter’s reasoning that “transferring emails from a foreign server so FBI agents c[an] review them locally as part of a domestic fraud probe d[oes] not qualify as a seizure . . . because there [i]s “no meaningful interference” with the account holder’s “possessory interest” in the data sought . . . [the retrieval] has the potential for an invasion of privacy, [but] the actual infringement of privacy occurs at the time of disclosure in the United States.”

Orin Kerr, law professor at The George Washington University School of Law, notes numerous problems with Judge Rueter’s decision. “The issue in this case is statutory, not constitutional. Even if you accept the (wrong) framing of the issue as being whether the SCA applies outside the United States, the answer has to come from what Congress focused on, not where the constitutional privacy interest may or may not be. Where you place the Fourth Amendment search or seizure strikes me as irrelevant to the extraterritorial focus of the statute.”

Kerr further contends that, “Even accepting the court’s framing, I don’t think it’s right that no seizure occurred abroad. As I see it, copying Fourth Amendment-protected files seizes them under the Fourth Amendment ‘when copying occurs without human observation and interrupts the stream of possession or transmission’. . . . That test is satisfied here when the information was copied. The court suggests that bringing a file back to the United States is not a seizure because Google moves data around all the time and ‘this interference is de minimis and temporary.’ I don’t think that works. Google is a private company not regulated by the Fourth Amendment, so whether it moves around data is irrelevant.”

It will come as no surprise that Google plans to appeal the Third Circuit decision. Likely a slough of other tech and media companies that previously filed amicus curie briefs in the Microsoft case will file briefs again, such as Apple, Amazon, AT&T, eBay, and Verizon.

Key questions that remain, then, are what will the Third Circuit decide on review?

Will the court follow the precedent set by the Second Circuit in Warrant?

Will it adopt the reasoning of the dissenters in the denial of Warrant‘s en banc review?

Will it follow Judge Rueter’s reasoning in the case at bar?

Or will it render an entirely novel opinion?

And though we can be sure that the losing party will petition the Supreme Court, one also must consider whether a final player emerge, in the form of Congress directly intervening? After all, the SCA was enacted in 1986, and many consider it not only out of date, but also relatively unworkable for modern technological issues. The time certainly seems ripe for a statutory update.

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