WEF: Governments should track phones for ‘inclusion’

The World Economic Forum (WEF) is urging governments to make cities more “inclusive” by using big data surveillance methods like anonymized phone tracking.

In an article for the WEF last week, MIT Urban Studies and Planning Director Carlo Ratti and Bristol Mayor Marvin Rees suggested that “big data can help make cities more inclusive.”

“Big data can highlight how cities are divided by tracking the subtlest forms of segregation with large, anonymous datasets of mobile phone activity,” the authors wrote.

They pointed to a study in Singapore in which MIT researchers tracked the mobile phone activity of residents from neighborhoods varying in socioeconomic status. This was done by obtaining the call detail record (CDR) data of 2.6 million users, which included information on the callers, the recipients, call duration, location and other diagnostics. 

The researchers found that people who live in areas of different socioeconomic status are less likely to call each other or be near each other, and concluded that this could be “remedied” by changes to urban planning.

“The findings suggest that cell phone interactions of people in Singapore are affected by not only geographic proximity but also how social groups are distributed in the urban environment,” wrote the academics. “We argue that the spatial organization of social groups in a city, which is often directed by urban planning policies . . . will have a direct impact on how people communicate in the virtual or online space.”

In the article, Ratti and Rees — both are members of the WEF’s Global Future Cities Council — say the Singapore study shows “the power of a data-driven, locally led approach to promote inclusion” and suggest governments commandeer big data for inclusion.

“Big data can give us unprecedented quantifications of the problems we face, but the decision power needs to be in the right hands. National governments typically have the resources to lead large urban programmes, but only local governments possess an intimate knowledge of their surroundings.”

This, say the WEF operatives, will help eliminate “liminal ghettos” — unofficially “segregated” areas whose residents are less likely to mix with those of a different socioeconomic status.