Array of Things
arrayofthings.github.io
arrayofthings.github.io
"(...) sensors for measuring air and surface temperature, (...). Two cameras will collect data on vehicle and foot traffic, (...)."
They do say "(...) no personally identifiable information will be stored or released by sensor nodes", and opening up the data allows the public to verify that; but I remain skeptical. (Of course, with sensors becoming cheaper and cheaper, the death of privacy seems almost inevitable...)
(Quotes from their linked blog, https://ci.uchicago.edu/press-releases/chicago-becomes-first...)
That isn't a good excuse to kill it now.
For example, the most recent one was in October: http://www.smartchicagocollaborative.org/announcing-the-octo...
Skepticism around projects like this is absolutely necessary and should be actively encouraged. The point of this project is to enable cities, universities and research groups to directly tap into key environmental factors and help craft smarter policies for the benefit of everyone.
Bold words this day and age, and ones I'm happy to see. Let's hope they can keep to it.
The majority of the consumers of the data thus far have been researchers at Argonne and UChicago. The City of Chicago is, obviously, our main partner in this and they are looking forward to building applications for residents and internal teams to work with the data.
I would really like to see this used to tell people where street parking is available in areas where there is alternate side cleaning. A LOT of people spend ~ 5-10 mins 2-3 times a week looking for parking in NYC and its boroughs(where I live) or really any city with this issue.
I would be happy to answer any questions people have about AoT or anything related to it.
This could be achieved if they wouldn't track exact number, but ranges like: 0-50 people, 51-150 etc.
Also note that bucketing is not sufficient if the lowest bucket is just 0 and the next one up starts at 1, because people walking alone will then easily show up as they go past a series of sensors. There will be a temptation to separate out zero, because it'll seem important to distinguish between "no traffic" and "small amount of traffic". Resist that temptation.
If there is any other information reported that can be correlated, it'll be easy to use that for further identification. For instance, pressure or vibration information, noise-level information, or many other sensors would easily be dual-purposed as a presence-detect.
Beyond that, please read up on all the ways that certain sensor data can have side-channels; for instance, sufficiently high-resolution accelerometer data can be turned into audio with enough fidelity to recognize speech.
Could you recommend any specific sources I or anyone else on the team could read about how best to work with and protect this kind of data?
First, take a look at material on the "security mindset", starting with https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2008/03/the_security_... . Everyone on your team needs to be thinking, for every new feature, "how could this be exploited?".
Second, for the specific case of sensors, start looking at research on sensor side-channel attacks, and how sensors can be used to gather information you wouldn't expect. For instance, see "Sensor Side-Channel Implications on User Privacy: Analysis and Mitigation". And take a look at some of the sensor-related work coming out of the various workshops on "Cyber-Physical Systems Security".
Finally, please keep in mind that it's still risky to have these sensor nodes out there that even have the capability of doing this collection. Even if you keep all of the above in mind, even if you do everything you can to mitigate it, the capability will still exist, and all it would take is some malicious policy changes to abuse your work and your infrastructure, and turn it into a massive invasion of privacy. With that in mind, start now, while policies are in your favor, arranging maximum transparency for the nodes, source code, data collection, and similar. That way, if anyone ever does try to abuse your work and your infrastructure, it'll be extremely obvious, and if anyone tries to remove the transparency first, then it'll be conspicuous by its newfound absence. That same "security mindset" I mentioned above also applies to policies and administrations; take the time, while those policies and administrations are in your favor, to plan ahead for the scenario where they are not. Plan ahead for something you hope you never need, because once you find out you do need it, you might not have the option of building it anymore.
If you're interested in the project, feel free to contact me (info in profile).