NYT Labs releases Openpaths, a utility for saving your iphone data

Jake Porway writes:

We launched Openpaths the other week. It’s a site where people can privately upload and view their iPhone location data (at least until an Apple update wipes it out) and also download their data for their own use. More than just giving people a neat tool to view their data with, however, we’re also creating an option for them to donate their data to research projects at varying levels of anonymity. We’re still working out the terms for that, but we’d love any input and to get in touch with anyone who might want to use the data.

I don’t have any use for this personally but maybe it will interest some of you.

From the webpage:

Openpaths is an anonymous, user-contributed database for the personal location data files recorded by iOS devices. Users securely store, explore, and manage their personal location data, and grant researchers access to portions of that data as they choose.

All location data stored in openpaths is kept separate from user profiles, and linked only at the moment when a user grants access to a research request. Each user has encrypted their data with a unique passphrase that only they know, and that openpaths does not store. When a user grants a data donation request, we confirm that user’s passphrase at that time, and use it to retrieve the appropriate location files.

Research requests are received from any and all projects – public, private, commercial, academic, artistic, or governmental. Requests typically look at specific geographical areas or demographic information about their subjects, so research requests include these criteria. Based on this information, users receive monthly updates that list the projects where their data is a good fit, and are offered the opportunity to donate their data.

In return, we ask researchers to provide a small benefit to their data donors. This might be a custom visualization of a donor’s location information, access to the results of the research, or other related benefits.

3 thoughts on “NYT Labs releases Openpaths, a utility for saving your iphone data

  1. I would question the wisdom of using "-paths" in this context; there was a slight lag between my reading the word and realizing that it wasn't a formation analogous to psychopaths / sociopaths.

  2. To complete what Sarang said, "-paths" in this context can be used among with the meaning of the self directed state. It can either belong to it, or not. So your argument was already valid.

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