Different from the government (in theory). In the US in particular, any data that is generated from a tax-dollar-paid system is by default public information that can be requested either by FOIA or a state-equivalent law. I think that is a qualitative difference that makes this genuinely worth considering. Imagine if Google et. al. were legally required to make their location data publicly available. I mean, assume that were the case from the inception of the idea to gather that data because that's how it is with governments in the US.

(Granted, there are further considerations around the potential for abuse, especially when considering victims of domestic violence/abuse. But the idea is far more palatable than what we currently have with large corporations.)

Let’s be clear: the current situation is that every trip I take is privately accessible information that is sold for pennies but otherwise difficult to access; critically, there is no obligation for the information to be shared. Yes, this is a far less palatable situation than if such data is simply and plainly public: the gatherers, in this case governments, would have an obligation to share it with the subjects of the data.

I’d personally prefer no data collection, but that’s just where my vote goes. Unfortunately, in this hypothetical my vote was the less popular one:

> If it's useful, and the citizens vote for it, why shouldn't cities collect this data?