The Victorian Government has defended a plan to collect location data from mobile phones to help it plan improvements to the transport network.

Key points: The Government said it needed better data on how Victorians moved around Melbourne

The Government said it needed better data on how Victorians moved around Melbourne It plans to collect more data from people's mobile apps, phone networks and bluetooth

It plans to collect more data from people's mobile apps, phone networks and bluetooth Liberty Victoria warned the collated data could become a "honey pot" for hackers

The Government wants to explore collecting and using anonymised movement data from the mobile phone network, app location data and in-vehicle Bluetooth and GPS data, according to a Government document.

Under the plan, the data would be used to understand travel delays, bicycle and pedestrian routes and journey reliability for travellers.

Minister Martin Foley said information had been collected in the past and Victorians could simply turn off location data if they had concerns.

"This is a process that is used globally. It's been a process that was being used in Victoria in the past, the Tullamarine [Freeway] widening project was a case in point," he said.

He said the information about how people moved around the city would be used to plan "the most efficient and effective integrated transport system".

Data pool could create hacker 'honey pot'

Liberty Victoria's president Jessie Taylor said gathering location data from millions of Victorians in one place risked creating a "honey pot" for hackers.

"Hackers will really target on cracking that particular nut because there's so much payoff if they can," she told ABC Radio Melbourne.

Victoria's Auditor-General warned last month that patient data was "highly vulnerable" in Victoria after auditors hacked into some of the state's biggest health databases using "basic hacking tools".

Sorry, this audio has expired Liberty Victoria's Jessie Taylor tells ABC Radio Melbourne's Andrew Hansen the data harvesting plan could pose privacy risks

Ms Taylor also questioned whether the data would be properly de-identified to prevent abuse by either hackers or those who had access to the information.

"There could be terrible and dire consequences if this information fell into the wrong hands or indeed if people who are able and entitled to access this information do so in a way that is not intended and is not properly authorised," she said.

Victoria's population is growing rapidly and the data would be used to inform several major infrastructure projects under development, the Government said.

The Government said the plan had been developed in consultation with the Office of the Victorian Information Commissioner and an assessment carried out to ensure the data use complied with privacy laws.

Opposition spokesman David Davis said it was concerned the Government did not have adequate privacy safeguards for the data and Labor could not be trusted to protect the public.