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| JUNE 5, 2008 |
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Barabasi said he did not check with any ethics panel. Had he done so, he might have gotten
an earful, suggested bioethicist Arthur Caplan at the University of Pennsylvania.
"There is plenty going on here that sets off ethical alarm bells about privacy and
trustworthiness," Caplan said.
Studies done on normal behavior at public places is "fair game for researchers" as long as
no one can figure out identities, Caplan said in an e-mail.
"So if I fight at a soccer match or walk through 30th Street train station in Philly, I can be
studied," Caplan wrote. "But my cell phone is not public. My cell phone is personal. Tracking it
and thus its owner is an active intrusion into personal privacy."
Paul Stephens, policy director at the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse in San Diego, said the
nonconsensual part of the study raises the Big Brother issue.
"It certainly is a major concern for people who basically don't like to be tracked and shouldn't
be tracked without their knowledge," Stephens said.
Study co-author Hidalgo said there is a difference between being a statistic — such as how
many people buy a certain brand of computer — and a specific example. The people tracked
in the study are more statistics than examples.
"In the wrong hands the data could be misused," Hidalgo said. "But in scientists' hands
you're trying to look at broad patterns.... We're not trying to do evil things. We're trying to make
the world a little better."
Knowing people's travel patterns can help design better transportation systems and give
doctors guidance in fighting the spread of contagious diseases, he said.
The results also tell us something new about ourselves, including that we tend to go to the
same places repeatedly, he said.
"Despite the fact that we think of ourselves as spontaneous and unpredictable ... we do have
our patterns we move along and for the vast majority of people it's a short distance," Barabasi
said.
The study found that nearly half of the people in the study pretty much keep to a circle little
more than six miles wide and that 83 percent of the people tracked mostly stay within a 37-
mile wide circle.
But then there are the people who are the travel equivalent of the super-rich, said Hidalgo,
who travels more than 150 miles every weekend to visit his girlfriend. Nearly 3 percent of the
population regularly go beyond a 200-mile wide circle. Less than 1 percent of people travel
often out of a 621-mile circle.
But most people like to stay much closer to home. Hidalgo said he understands why:
"There's a lot of people who don't like hectic lives. Travel is such a hassle."
an earful, suggested bioethicist Arthur Caplan at the University of Pennsylvania.
"There is plenty going on here that sets off ethical alarm bells about privacy and
trustworthiness," Caplan said.
Studies done on normal behavior at public places is "fair game for researchers" as long as
no one can figure out identities, Caplan said in an e-mail.
"So if I fight at a soccer match or walk through 30th Street train station in Philly, I can be
studied," Caplan wrote. "But my cell phone is not public. My cell phone is personal. Tracking it
and thus its owner is an active intrusion into personal privacy."
Paul Stephens, policy director at the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse in San Diego, said the
nonconsensual part of the study raises the Big Brother issue.
"It certainly is a major concern for people who basically don't like to be tracked and shouldn't
be tracked without their knowledge," Stephens said.
Study co-author Hidalgo said there is a difference between being a statistic — such as how
many people buy a certain brand of computer — and a specific example. The people tracked
in the study are more statistics than examples.
"In the wrong hands the data could be misused," Hidalgo said. "But in scientists' hands
you're trying to look at broad patterns.... We're not trying to do evil things. We're trying to make
the world a little better."
Knowing people's travel patterns can help design better transportation systems and give
doctors guidance in fighting the spread of contagious diseases, he said.
The results also tell us something new about ourselves, including that we tend to go to the
same places repeatedly, he said.
"Despite the fact that we think of ourselves as spontaneous and unpredictable ... we do have
our patterns we move along and for the vast majority of people it's a short distance," Barabasi
said.
The study found that nearly half of the people in the study pretty much keep to a circle little
more than six miles wide and that 83 percent of the people tracked mostly stay within a 37-
mile wide circle.
But then there are the people who are the travel equivalent of the super-rich, said Hidalgo,
who travels more than 150 miles every weekend to visit his girlfriend. Nearly 3 percent of the
population regularly go beyond a 200-mile wide circle. Less than 1 percent of people travel
often out of a 621-mile circle.
But most people like to stay much closer to home. Hidalgo said he understands why:
"There's a lot of people who don't like hectic lives. Travel is such a hassle."