The council is considering signing up to the telecommunication giant's controversial Location Insights program, which tracks mobile users' age, gender and movements.

Several councillors expressed grave concerns over the privacy implications for residents when the matter was discussed behind closed doors at a council meeting last month.

In 2016, the Australian Bureau of Statistics caused a backlash when it worked with the telco for a study which used mobile phone data showing how many people were in particular suburbs hour by hour.

Telstra has described the data sold through its Location Insights program as legally obtained and “aggregated and anonymised”, and insists it does not share or sell any information which could identify their customers, saying “this is high level network data”. 

The data, which is being offered to Wagga City Council and other Evocities councils, could include the gender and ages of mobile phone users.

The offer has divided the opinions of councillors, who voted unanimously at a meeting last month to defer any decision until they had held a workshop to get more information.

Wagga mayor Greg Conkey told The Daily Advertiser he was in favour of a trial of the use of the Location Insights service in the city.

“It will be great for the city, as far as future planning goes,” Councillor Conkey said.

“It’s good data: Age groups, gender, how long people stay in town, if they go to restaurants.

“There are no privacy issues as the data is available now. There are a lot of applications that it could probably be used for.

“The idea is to use the data for the benefit of the city.”

Cr Conkey said council would have “no idea who anyone is”.

Deputy mayor Dallas Tout said he too could see the benefits of the Telstra service.

“But I do have privacy concerns, even about aggregated data,” he said.

“There is a lot of information they can provide: Where you are, what you are doing, how long you are there. There’s a stack of stuff.

“I am yet to be convinced.”

Like the deputy mayor, Cr Tim Koschel had concerns about privacy.

“That’s why we wanted to get more information before making a decision,” he said.

“We want to know how they are using this information and who is going to have this data.”

Cr Paul Funnell said there was “absolutely no way” he would be supporting any move by the council to use the Location Insights service.

“I understand they (Telstra) can collect the data, but I do not believe they should share it,” he said.

“It’s a breach of people’s privacy. I am sick of Big Brother looking into people’s lives. A lot of people are sick of Big Brother looking into their lives.”

Cr Funnell said Wikileaks and the recent controversy over Cambridge Analytica collecting the personal information of 87 million Facebook users illustrated the concerns people had about trusting big companies with their personal information.

“No one in the community has asked council to start using this,” he said.

“And no one has asked the public if they want us to do it.”

Bathurst City Council has recently purchased the Location Insights system.

A spokeswoman said Bathurst was not using the system yet, but it was “envisaged that council will use the system for planning, infrastructure and event management”.

Bathurst council has also considered providing free wi-fi, and said data would be collected.

John Khoury, director of business services at Telstra, said the telco had been “working with some government departments to assist them with planning challenges through the use of Telstra Location Insights”.

“Our aggregated and anonymised location-based insights can be used to better understand population movements across geography and time,” Mr Khoury said.

“For example, councils can look at the number of people who travel into and out of their city each day and assess what investment is needed to meet future demand for local infrastructure and roads. We do not track the location of individuals or provide real-time location information. We generate insights that are aggregated and anonymous so there is no prospect of individual identification.”

Selling data gathered from mobile customers may be legal, but it also raises community concerns, says a security expert.

Patrick Walsh, an associate professor in intelligence and security studies at Charles Sturt University, said instances like this, and the controversy over the Bureau of Statistics’ 2016 study, created concern for the community.

“It’s a legal thing that happened, but it crosses that concern that the public have more about privacy and about ‘where’s my data going and where’s it being shared’,” Professor Walsh said.

“Now, you can sort of say to the community that you don’t need to be too upset because clearly its been anonymised, so therefore it’s not an issue, but you’ve seen with Facebook and Cambridge Analytica, the on-selling of data, even if it’s anonymised, does create problems.

“It creates great concern for the community.”

Professor Walsh said there were other issues which were raised, including concerns about what a third party like Wagga City Council could do with the data once it was given to them, and how it was stored.

He also questioned any evidence that showed the information provided by Telstra would actually be useful in planning.

“Data produces knowledge, so you can’t say we can’t use data. I don’t think that’s practical,” Professor Walsh said. “But it’s the conditions which do the least harm, and obviously it’s in a lawful way.

“I think Facebook and this example of Telstra just sort of echoes the growing public concern about ‘well, my own identity, my own data, how much is that really mine?’.

“Increasingly, it’s less yours. I think that’s the reality.

“Most people wouldn’t read that fine print. I guess the issue is that people need to become more aware.”