Big Brother comes to Venice
 

So the city is investing on building a control room, to monitor all the security cameras throughout the city but more importantly, to track tourists on a daily basis, using their phones which connect to TIM towers, to determine the nationality of visitors, what percentage of them are day-trippers, and which areas of the city they go to.

It's not personalized data tracking but tracking in the aggregate. They will use info on where the SIM cards of the phones are registered to make assumptions about the nationalities of the visitors.

https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/v...ism/index.html

It's maybe not Big Brother level yet but they are seeing what kind of data they can collect and make guesses about predicting tourist behavior.

So this control center, which looks like something out of a spy movie, only cost a few million (7 digits). Maybe not yet too elaborate.

Interesting, scrb11. I'd heard about the plan to charge day trippers [not sure how that'll work, tbh] but not the one to track our every move. oh I know that it will effectively be anonymised but for how long?

We had the worst time getting a signal and using our cell phone for maps in Venice; will this work any better?

Probably had to do with the carrier you were using.

Venice being a major city and attraction, there's plenty of cell coverage by TIM and probably other top carriers like Vodafone. Some of those old stone palaces may block signals inside.

scrb11 - I have to agree - one of the amazing things about Venice is how good mobile coverage is . Very useful for Apps like "Che Bateo" which will tell you when the next vaporetto is due to arrive etc as well as maps, restaurants, museums - I've booked tickets for exhibitions on my phone on the way there and jumped the queue as a result.

probably no worse than in your local supermarket

<<probably no worse than in your local supermarket>>

No queues in my local supermarket at the time I go apart from Easter Saturday 2020, and one day at Christmas which I decided to pass on.

And the queues for some exhibitions such as the ones at the Accademia and the Doge's Palace have been humungous at times.

Sorry Ann, I was referring to the movement tracking in your local supermarket compared to Venice tourist tracking.

<<Sorry Ann, I was referring to the movement tracking in your local supermarket compared to Venice tourist tracking.>>

oops - though I'm not sure that movement tracking has reached Tesco's in Redruth. or indeed Cornwall.

Well it certainly it is in place in Tescos in St Austell and most large chains across UK. If you leave your phone searching for a wifi link when you enter they can track you very easily, they tend to monitor movement and where you stop. They started with heat mapping in 2006 and have never stopped.

well thanks Bilbo. you learn something new every day. they must find my weekly sat am visit very boring - I nearly alway buy the same things every week.

Ann, you and are the sort of customer they like, they can plan around us