Emerging Legal Issues for Transportation Researchers Using Passively Collected Data Sets

With the advent of new technologies to gather and process data, large data sets are being collected that are of interest to transportation researchers. However, legal and ethical questions around data ownership and protection in the context of emerging technologies, especially with regard to emerging automated and connected vehicle technologies, are still being formulated and addressed, but are not settled. This research compares the uses of primary and secondary, passively collected data sources to identify legal considerations affecting access to these data for transportation researchers. With privately sourced data becoming more prevalent, researchers are faced with additional duties and changing practices. This exploratory research aims to provide guidance to transportation researchers on the legal and ethical requirements for data protection.