> Holy shit.. can you imagine someone just plotting all the trips from a single gay bar? Listing off all the connected residential addresses? And not only that, any subsequent trips home from those addresses the next morning? Taking the walk of shame to a whole new level!
There are some weird assumptions going on here, in addition to the fact that you grossly overestimate the precision to which GPS data can de-anonymize individuals who are using a shared, public transport mechanism in a city as densely crowded as NYC. The density of people and businesses alone makes individual identification difficult, not to mention weak GPS signals and low accuracy with skyscrapers every hundred yards. Is there any evidence that the logs have enough accuracy to do what you're claiming, or are you just wildly speculating?
What is the weird assumption? That GPS is precise enough to identify addresses? Not all of NYC has skyscrapers every hundred yards.. that's only portions of Manhattan. It's 5 boroughs.
Oh my god. You really think there are poor people in Brooklyn or the Bronx who, nevermind being able to afford a place in which they are the only people within 50m of 10 other families, can regularly go into the city at a given time in a taxi? The commute traffic into Manhattan is hellish -- who in their right mind would use it to get to work? A taxi is not a replacement for a car, it is a luxury, and it is expensive.
Another poor assumption: that people get dropped off right in front of their homes. Uh, no. I take taxis several times a month to get home. I'm never, never able to get dropped off right in front of my apartment because traffic is dense enough and the one-way streets add another 0.50 to $1 when I can just hop off and take a pleasant two minute walk up the corner.
edit: And another poor assumption: that there is one easily locatable gay bar within a vicinity of where people hail a taxi (again, it won't always, or even mostly, be in front of the exact place they just walked out of) or that, after leaving a bar, people go straight to their own home.
Plenty of people take taxis between Manhattan and Brooklyn. A significant percentage of rides home to Brooklyn from Manhattan bars at night are in cabs, for example. The fact that you think everyone in Brooklyn is "poor" or that only rich people take cabs shows how inaccurate your knowledge of NYC is.
I've tried to address your other concerns in other comments. Just because you don't get dropped off at your place doesn't mean no-one else in NYC does ever.
There are some weird assumptions going on here, in addition to the fact that you grossly overestimate the precision to which GPS data can de-anonymize individuals who are using a shared, public transport mechanism in a city as densely crowded as NYC. The density of people and businesses alone makes individual identification difficult, not to mention weak GPS signals and low accuracy with skyscrapers every hundred yards. Is there any evidence that the logs have enough accuracy to do what you're claiming, or are you just wildly speculating?