DOI: 10.23729/e28d1fbb-86aa-43e6-a0f1-895b077106d8
title: Geoprivacy Open Data
title: Geoprivacy Open Data

description: # General
Geoprivacy Open Data is an anonymised tracking dataset in gpx format based on voluntary donations of personal human mobility data. Anonymisation means that all direct and indirect references to a person have been removed, while at the same time, the original data is preserved as much as possible. The raw data donations have been done through the Geoprivacy platform operating at [https://geoprivacy.fi/](https://geoprivacy.fi/).

The Geoprivacy platform is a service where cyclists, joggers, and pedestrians can donate GPS (Global Positioning System) and other GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) tracking data for science. Additionally, the portal offers an open data repository to which users can choose to provide a privacy-protected version of their data. The open data is freely available to urban planners, scientists, and industry, i.e., everyone interested in the innovation potential of detailed personal-level mobility data. The hourly updates of the data are available from the platform, and this data is one of the monthly/yearly frozen versions of live data having exhaustive metadata descriptions, a persistent identifier, and access through the [https://etsin.fairdata.fi](https://etsin.fairdata.fi) service.

The platform was born as part of our research on privacy issues related to using precise individual-level location data. A prime example of this is activity tracking data, which citizens are recording using various mobile sports tracking applications. **Our vision is that this tracking data could be used to improve the infrastructure for non-motorized means of travel.** Making cycling and walking more safe and convenient could greatly help reduce the number of cars in cities.

Activity tracking data is not easily accessible. Even when tracks are publicly visible on the web, the terms of use usually limit the ways in which the data can be used. Some companies grant specific types of users, e.g., urban planners, access to the data, but only in a heavily processed form. There are good reasons to limit the distribution of the data: Activity tracking data is sensitive data and can reveal surprising personal details. These include, for example, home and workplace, and repeating patterns such as commuting behavior.

We started the Geoprivacy platform to request voluntary participants to donate their tracking data for science. The original tracks are used only for research related to location data privacy within our research group. However, the participants have the additional option to donate a processed version of their tracks to an open data repository.

With the open, privacy-preserving data repository, we hope to provide the scientific community with a benchmark dataset for non-motorized mobility data, making research in this area more comparable and reproducible. Furthermore, the open repository can serve as a proof-of-concept for a service that allows citizens to share their data directly with urban planning authorities.

# Privacy protection
The details of the privacy protection method are described at [https://geoprivacy.fi/#/privacy-mechanisms](https://geoprivacy.fi/#/privacy-mechanisms). In addition to the listed mechanisms, the population density of the data area needs to be more than 6 inhabitants per square kilometer, and the data has to be inside Finland.

# Versions and release notes
This dataset is the cumulative Geoprivacy Open Data. The earlier frozen datasets can be found from the Fairdata.fi service [Etsin with the search term "geoprivacy"](https://etsin.fairdata.fi/datasets/geoprivacy?keys=&terms=&p=1&sort=best) .

**Geoprivacy Open Data** (2024/11 release -&gt;) Starting from November 2024, frozen snapshots of the Geoprivacy Open Data will be published as a cumulative dataset. 

**Geoprivacy Open Data 2023/11 release** Added string "cycling_", "running_", or "walking_" to the filenames. Mode of movement is assessed based on the average speed computed for each trajectory. Note: The classification is prone to errors and should be refined for mode of travel -critical applications.

# Format and coordinate system
The data is provided in the standard GPX format. The general GPX XML schema is available at [https://www.topografix.com/GPX/1/1/](https://www.topografix.com/GPX/1/1/).

Each GPX file starts with definitions of the XML version and character encoding, the GPX version, and the library used for creating the file. The actual location data is given in and elements, where the latitude and longitude values of each track point are given after and attributes using decimal degrees in the WGS84 coordinate system (EPSG: 4326). The time stamp for each point is given in the element in UTC. For day-time critical applications, conversion to EET/EEST taking into account the day-light saving is important (EET = UTC + 2h, EEST = UTC + 3h).

# Terms of use
The dataset is provided as open data, and its use is controlled by [the Terms of Use for the GeoPrivacy Open Data](https://geoprivacy.fi/#/open-data-terms-of-use).

If you use the data in your work, please use the citation

&gt;Mäkinen, V., Brauer, A. and Oksanen, J. 2023. Geoprivacy platform, available at: https://geoprivacy.fi

and acknowledge

&gt;"We made use of geospatial data provided by the Open Geospatial Information Infrastructure for Research (Geoportti, urn:nbn:fi:research-infras-2016072513) funded by the Academy of Finland, CSC – IT Center for Science, and other Geoportti consortium members."

# Acknowledgements
The Geoprivacy project and platform have been funded by the Finnish Cultural Foundation and the Academy of Finland. The platform is the service pilot of the Geoportti RI (Open Geospatial Information Infrastructure for Research, urn:nbn:fi:research-infras-2016072513).