KEWANEE, Ill. — The city of Kewanee is considering the option of tracking residents' movements through their cell phones.
According to Kewanee City Manager Gary Bradley, they're deciding whether to work with a company called Placer.ai to track local phones. Bradley said they can do this by buying the data that is already collected by phone companies.
The goal of this partnership is to see where the most popular areas are around town, Bradley said.
"It does some heat mapping things that tell you where a certain number of people are and it can give you an idea of areas that might be more suitable for development or redevelopment than other areas," Bradley said.
But the AI option would be completely anonymous, so personal information, phone conversation, or internet searches cannot be seen by the city, according to Bradley.
The tracker also allows the city to plan future business projects.
"From an economic development standpoint, being able to look at those numbers and get an idea of what kind of market there is, helps to be able to attract retailers to a community," Bradley said.
Abbigail Becket, Galva, said she thinks the city should use simpler ways of collecting the data.
"Pretty much just go around asking people about what you what the city needs and how to help the city," Becket said.
But overall, Bradley said the AI tool shouldn't raise any eyebrows.
"I think people need to understand that they've given the permissions already," Bradley said. "It's not us tracking them, but certainly the perception of government overreach and tracking the movement of its citizens. Yeah, that's a concern for people."
If Kewanee begins work with Placer.ai, it would cost them $15,000 a year. They are still deciding whether to move forward with the plans.