Due to privacy risks, the City of Amsterdam is abandoning the use of tracking traffic lights for the time being. Alderman Melanie van der Horst recently announced this to the city council.
These intelligent traffic lights should improve traffic flow. When traffic arrives, the lights jump to green. However, the Personal Data Authority (AP) expressed concern about this last year.
Intelligent traffic lights can measure how much traffic is passing by. They do this by contacting the cell phones of road users. These usually do not notice this. The AP points out that this involves collecting people's personal information on a large scale. Journeys can be mapped from beginning to end: including date, time and speed.
Van der Horst said newly installed traffic lights are ready to be upgraded to an intelligent traffic light. "This allows the traffic lights to be connected as soon as this has the added value that justifies the additional investment and the privacy and security risks have been removed," the alderman said.
Click here for the alderman's letter to the City Council.
