5 ms·

And we all wondered why they so adamantly opposed having GPS installed...

by oldgregg 17y ago

sliverstorm 17y ago
No. No, we didn't wonder. We knew and they knew.
- andrewcooke 17y ago
  i don't see how that makes sense. the fraction of drivers doing this, according to the report, is small. so if there was a popular objection then it must also have included people (a majority) who don't do this. perhaps people simply value privacy, even while doing their job. [also - note how the bad behaviour of a minority is being used to justify the loss of privacy by the majority; this happens again and again]
  - jfager 17y ago
    Why would a cab driver have an expectation that his location be private when driving people around in a cab? That makes no sense.
    - andrewcooke 17y ago
      you really think the customer knowing a driver's location, or someone seeing them go past on the street, is the same as a centralised record?
      - jfager 17y ago
        Not at all, when did I say that? I said it makes no sense to think a cab driver has any reasonable expectation that the location of his cab would be private in any sense when it's in service and carrying passengers. As a frequent cab rider, I'm happy to know that the location of the stranger's car that I just jumped into is tracked and recorded at all times. Why do you think this information should be kept private?
        nitrogen 17y ago
        Why do you think this information should be kept private? Maybe because, as with the demise Netflix Prize, the data can be correlated with some other dataset to identify individuals who ride in the cabs.
  - tedunangst 17y ago
    There's also the drivers who would get paid in cash and "forget" to record the fare. And various other ploys (lot harder to take out of towners around the block six times when they're watching the GPS map). Also, popular objection doesn't strictly mean a majority. It means the head of the Taxi Worker Alliance objected. And like any union boss, his motivations aren't strictly inline with what's best for the all workers.

And we all wondered why they so adamantly opposed having GPS installed...

sliverstorm 17y ago

No. No, we didn't wonder. We knew and they knew.

andrewcooke 17y ago
i don't see how that makes sense. the fraction of drivers doing this, according to the report, is small. so if there was a popular objection then it must also have included people (a majority) who don't do this. perhaps people simply value privacy, even while doing their job. [also - note how the bad behaviour of a minority is being used to justify the loss of privacy by the majority; this happens again and again]
- jfager 17y ago
  Why would a cab driver have an expectation that his location be private when driving people around in a cab? That makes no sense.
  - andrewcooke 17y ago
    you really think the customer knowing a driver's location, or someone seeing them go past on the street, is the same as a centralised record?
    - jfager 17y ago
      Not at all, when did I say that? I said it makes no sense to think a cab driver has any reasonable expectation that the location of his cab would be private in any sense when it's in service and carrying passengers. As a frequent cab rider, I'm happy to know that the location of the stranger's car that I just jumped into is tracked and recorded at all times. Why do you think this information should be kept private?
      - nitrogen 17y ago
        Why do you think this information should be kept private? Maybe because, as with the demise Netflix Prize, the data can be correlated with some other dataset to identify individuals who ride in the cabs.
- tedunangst 17y ago
  There's also the drivers who would get paid in cash and "forget" to record the fare. And various other ploys (lot harder to take out of towners around the block six times when they're watching the GPS map). Also, popular objection doesn't strictly mean a majority. It means the head of the Taxi Worker Alliance objected. And like any union boss, his motivations aren't strictly inline with what's best for the all workers.