The Gold Coast Council will use a new city Wi-Fi service to "harvest Facebook data from visitors to next month’s Commonwealth Games," according to Ben Smee of the London GUARDIAN. The data mining, which the council says "is legal and will be used to help the city market itself to tourists," relies on visitors using their Facebook accounts to log into a new high-speed Wi-Fi service. Users who "object to sharing their Facebook data" can still access the free Wi-Fi, "but the speed will be much slower and downloads restricted." The city switched on the Wi-Fi service in the "tourist hubs" of Surfers Paradise, Southport and Broadbeach on Tuesday, 15 days ahead of the CWG opening ceremony. It spent A$5M ($3.9M) to build its own infrastructure for the Games "due to concerns about the speed and rollout of the national broadband network." A city spokesperson insisted the council would only make "limited use" of the data it mined from tourists. She insisted data would not be shared with "other agencies" although reports about tourist activity based on the information could be made available to the tourism sector "and other sectors as appropriate" (GUARDIAN, 3/21).
