In the past year, transportation rental companies, including Bird, Lime, and Spin, have dropped hundreds of thousands of rental scooters across North America. Relying on mobile apps and scooter-mounted GPS units, these devices have access to a wide-variety of consumer data, including location, phone number, phone metadata, and more. Pairing corroborated phone and scooter GPS data with a last-mile transportation business model, scooter companies are able to collect a unique, highly identifying dataset on users. Data collected by these companies can be utilized by internal researchers or sold to advertisers and data brokers. Access to so much consumer data, however, poses serious security risks. Although Bird, Lime, and Spin posit electric scooters as environmentally friendly and accessible transportation, they also allow for unethical uses of user data through vaguely-worded terms of service. To promote more equitable transportation practices, this article will explore the implications of dockless scooter geotracking, as well as related infrastructure, privacy, and data security ramifications.

中文翻译：

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在智能设备上踩踏板车：出租踏板车的无形成本

在过去的一年中，包括Bird，Lime和Spin在内的运输租赁公司在整个北美地区已经丢弃了数十万辆踏板车。依靠移动应用程序和安装在踏板车上的GPS装置，这些设备可以访问各种消费者数据，包括位置，电话号码，电话元数据等。通过将经过确认的电话和踏板车GPS数据与最后一英里的运输业务模型进行配对，踏板车公司能够收集用户的独特，高度识别的数据集。这些公司收集的数据可以由内部研究人员使用，也可以出售给广告商和数据经纪人。但是，访问如此多的消费者数据会带来严重的安全风险。尽管Bird，Lime和Spin认为电动踏板车是环保且交通便利的交通工具，它们还允许通过措辞含糊的服务条款对用户数据进行不道德的使用。为了促进更公平的运输实践，本文将探讨无船坞滑板车地理跟踪的含义，以及相关的基础设施，隐私和数据安全后果。