San Antonio May Track Visitors’ Cellphone, Receipt and Search Data

San Antonio is considering using data collected from cellphones, credit card purchases, Internet searches and even their vehicles to track visitors to municipally owned destinations, such as the River Walk.

Officials say the information could prove valuable in making decisions about tourism marketing, events programming, crowd control and where to spend more money on capital improvements.

The city is testing the waters with a single department.

The Information Technology Services Department is working with the World Heritage Office, which manages Mission Marquee Plaza and the Spanish Governor’s Palace, to identify vendors whose data could be used to count visitors to its events and see where they came from and how much they spent. Events include the annual World Heritage Festival, markets, movie nights and festivals at the plaza.

“In the old days we would stand at the door with a little clicker, and we would click people as they came in,” CIO Craig Hopkins told a City Council committee Friday.

The five councilmembers on the Economic and Workforce Development Committee were mostly enthusiastic about the plan, but District 10 Councilman Marc Whyte raised concerns about infringing on privacy.

“Privacy has got to be No. 1,” Whyte said. “I do not want it to surveil our citizens or have it appear like we’re doing so.”

None of the third-party data would identify individuals, Hopkins said. Instead, it would include broad demographic information, such as the ZIP code of the visitor’s residence.

Though Hopkins said the city is looking at narrow uses for so-called “location intelligence data,” councilmembers talked broadly about how it could eventually inform city planning and spending decisions.

“Now that we’re talking about the possibility of creating a major entertainment district downtown with things that are huge, and stadiums and all that, I think it’s important that we get ahead of these questions as opposed to having to react later,” said District 8 Councilman Manny Peláez, referring to traffic and crowd control.

Location data could be used to reveal underutilized city parks, Peláez suggested.

“It makes me wonder — are we investing a lot of money in assets if people aren’t there?” he said. “And if they’re not there, how do we send them there so that investment is worth the dollars we’re putting in?”

The World Heritage Office could begin using third-party data for attendance tracking as early as the fall, Hopkins said.

No cost was given, but potential vendors could charge anywhere from $10,000 to $100,000 annually depending on the type of data, according to a presentation shown to council.

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