Commonwealth Games WiFi Mining

Commonwealth Games WiFi will be used to mine visitor’s Facebook data to promote the city to tourists.

18:31 22 March 2018

The Gold Coast Council will provide high-speed WiFi service for visitors to next month’s Commonwealth Games. It will be used to mine users’ Facebook data to promote the city to the tourists. Users who refuse to share their Facebook data will still be allowed to use the service but will get much slower speeds and downloads will be restricted.  

 

The service has been switched on at the tourist hubs of Surfers Paradise, Southport and Broadbeach on Tuesday.

 

A city spokeswoman said that the council would only make “limited use” of the data it mined from tourist.

 

“The most important information is about country of origin, to better understand the use by overseas tourists, who are one of the primary target groups for the service,” the spokeswoman said.

 

“The city will be able to understand patterns of demand and use, including how many people are accessing the service, times of day and the amounts of data used. It will also be very useful for understanding numbers during events and seasonal effects.”

 

“It should be stated that the city takes very seriously the protection of users’ data and information. The city will not be carrying out retrospective analysis of people’s Facebook accounts.”