Slashdot Mirror
Smartcards to Track London Commuters
misterpies writes "Technophiles across London have been excited about the recent introduction of Oyster smartcards on public transport to replace old-fashioned paper tickets. Their enthusiasm might cool off now that London Transport has admitted that not only can the card be used to track your journey across London -- they're actually going to keep the data for 'a number of years'. Add that to their congestion charge cameras used for tracking car movements and pretty soon you'll have to stick to walking if you don't want your movements tracked. Until they implement those facial recognition systems that were such a great success in Tampa, Florida."
With the Oyster Card (official web site is here: http://www.oystercard.com) you can
in a sense "opt out" if you are willing to pay more. Since the cards are mandatory
for people who buy season tickets, you can choose to have privacy at a fee by buying
individual tickets (which will remain on paper for some time).
Here in New York the Metrocard system offers some opportunity for tracking users
because the card have a unique ID and could be linked to credit card or debit card
information (and hence to you) if you buy the card at a machine with card. You often
see ads in the subway encouraging people to reuse their cards, for environmental
reasons, of course, but that does seem to me to help anyone who wanted to get long
term data on your travel habits.
Luckily, most Metrocard machines still accept cash for the anonymous purchase, and
then you can throw it away after your limited set of journeys.
Similarly, you can pay extra for a little bit of privacy on road tolls, New York's
EZPass system is cheaper (and quicker) than the cash toll, but less private. (Unless
you count those little cameras staring at your license plate of course).
John.
How about wearing jammers that confuse the electronics trying to track you?
Simple solution: swap your transit passes with your friends when you get together.
SCREW PROFILING, some ways to poison the well:
Swap supermarket "discount cards" with friends. (friend and I swap Safeway Club Cards when we get together)
Never give the right answers on surveys. Postage-paid mail in ones are the best. Make them think you go through 12 boxes of Kotex Extra Fluffy Pads a month even though it may just be you in your mom's basement.
Air Miles cards? Flying is cheap enough without my purchasing info being pored over by scumbag marketers.
Places that ask for your phone number? Give them a local massage parlour's number. (yes, I have one memorized for that purpose)
When entering your name somethere use a bogus middle initial so you know which firm sold your info when mail starts coming in with a wrong middle letter. If you get junk, return it as "Moved".
Bah, this is way off topic (mod me to hell) but it felt good. Time to check the tinfoil on my hat.
Trolling is a art,
I was thinking about this. I recently got one, and I was thinking that at the end of the month I would request all the data that London Underground holds on me. By law, under the Data Protection Act they have to give me all the info they hold for a small fee (capped at 10 if I recall correctly).
It will be interesting to see what they store..
(Also, they are not permitted to share that information with anyone else without my permission)
Angle Grinder Man
Maybe he has a brother, Card Scambler Man, for getting rid of those nasty radio tracking waves.
# When entering your name somethere use a bogus middle initial so you know which firm sold your info when mail starts coming in with a wrong middle letter. If you get junk, return it as "Moved".
I did something similar to this once, but worse for the companies. I was living in a dorm, and we got a MASS mailing from a credit card company. Three bags of mail came in that day. One was completely filled with credit card offers. Many people got more than one.
Well that was too much. So I rounded up everyone by the mail desk, and asked them to open their offers, tear out anything with their name on it, and mail the offer, and torn up envelope back using the postage-paid envelope sent by the company.
That way, they have to pay the postage, pay someone to open the mail, and pay extra while that person tries to figure out exactly what he's holding in his hand.
Sort of like calling telemarketers at home... The old -taste-of-your-own-medicine- ploy.
Slashdot Syndrome: the sudden, extreme urge to correct someone in order to validate one's self.
The legislation is just as relevant in this case and it would be possible to request from London Transport a copy of all information they hold on their computer systems about you and your travel movements. Then it might be possible to decide just how paranoid to become. Alternatively - just take the bus.
Let's face it: in our digital age, privacy has become a scarce commodity. We just have to surf the net and wonderful items such as cookies and spyware are downloaded to our machine at no additional cost. Not to mention corporate internet tracking tools to see what employees are surfing.
And what about credit card information? Why should I have somebody analyze my purchases to determine what I buy? Or, retail companies who analyze sales data by region (even right down to the household). If I want to buy from your store, I will.
As much as people say, "You're information will not be shared with anybody else...", I personally don't believe it. That's like saying we can carry a water with a siv.
The old addage of, "Well, if you do nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear..." is a load of crap. Why should we have anything to track our movements? All we need is somebody to say something is illegal/unethical/etc, and they can find out who's been going to those "illegal/unethical/etc" places (whether on the net or on the street).
People have been crying to governments for years for privacy, but it seems governments cannot keep up with technology. Heck, even governments allow this kind of activity. There's been quite a controversy over street cameras here in Canada, whether they be cameras to patrol the streets to stop crime, to photo-radar to stop speeding, to red-light cameras...with no proof it stops crime.
I know this sounds too much like a rant, but what I'd like to know is what can we do about it? We cry when our privacy is invaded, but how can we protect it? I'm looking for some realistic and practical solutions (blowing up governments is not a practical solution :-) ).
Thanks.
It is not our abilities that show what we truly are... it is our choices.
Frankly, I fail to see what the fuss is about. The Tube is public. You have no expectations of privacy. If you're worried about being tracked, buy your tickets with cash --- but remember your trenchcoat and false beard...
For you privacy theorists/skeptics out there, what if I buy 7 of these - 1 for each member of my family and 1 for each of my 2 triplet brothers...
Now, each of us travels around with some of those travel segments being with others using the cards I bought.
Who are they tracking, the purchaser of the cards or the person using the card?
Anyone that thinks they can accurately track anyone with this technology is simply wrong. They would have to assume that everyone that uses them buys 1 and only 1 card and doesn't buy for anyone else. Well, that's just not reality based.
Twin or more? ITA
Apache/Spring/La
No, but some of us believe it is a step closer to Revelation 13:16-18
Mock me if you want.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
I visited Singapore a couple of months ago and they already have a system like this in place. At the MRT station, you give them $10, and they hand you a card with $5 on it. The other $5 is a deposit that you get back when you turn the card in (I hope I remembered that right. Feel free to correct me if you know otherwise) They do not require any personal information, which seems to differ from the UK version. Other than that, the function appears to be identical.
:)). Obviously, the system works great without the need to tie personal information to the card.
Singapore's MRT system is highly efficient and is all run on these cards. We did not need a taxi or a car to see most of the country, and getting around was a snap even though we were tourists and it was our first time in Singapore (I guess it helps that English is a primary language there
Draw your own conclusions as to why the UK goverment feels the need to assign names to the cards.
-R
The only solution I see is the separation of the personal details and ID's. Like usernames: they identifie you, but don't give access to your personal information. The guvernment has, as should have your personal information. But I think a system could be made so everybody else( banks, shops, tube companies) only get your ID are not allowed to have your private information unless with direct consent from you. And for law enforcement you can always allow the combination of the databases with a warrant if you are a suspect and there is a "probable cause". We know the technology can easily allow data mining. Are we unable to divese a system that can be robust to unapprouved data mining ? Just my 2c
The reason people have problems with any information gathering system is because the more information you have on a person, the more power you have over them.
If I know all kinds of things about you I can then engauge in, for example, black ops to eliminate you if you do something I don't like. Slip some cianide into your food while you leave it in your car or the like.
Point here is, nobody trusts the goverment and rightly so. More often than not the law is abused horribly. Plus, if a new law is passed and the goverment has computers than can instantly tell what you've been doing, and can then launch a lawsuit against you, what is going to happen to the rapists and real killers? The system's going to be so swamped it isn't even funny plus what if they decide they'll just abduct people at random without trial and throw them into prison labor camps?
All you're going to do with this kind of system is creat criminals who are smarter and better equiped to fight the law. Plus, with the shotty record of large corperations; communisum failed becuase nobody was motivated to make good stuff, capitalism will fail becuase damn near everybody is so greedy they're trying to essentially bait and switch everybody into buying crap. What's more profitable? Selling you a watch that is a good one or selling you one that'll break in 6 months, is inexpensive to manufacture but looks expensive on the outside?
So what do you want to bet that whever you're buying from goverment agencies is crap?
Candy-Coated Knowledge
Ocifer 1: Sir, we just got a jammed card signal from Reader 4 on Platform 3.
Ocifer 2:Check the security cams for Platform 3.
Ocifer 1: Sir, it appears there's a man with a big battery and a 1337 light-modded black box hanging from his neck.
Ocifer 2: Is that tin-foil on his head? Jeez...*Dispatch...pick up the weirdo on Platform 3 and bring him in*
You know what?
well, obviously, if you travelled 75 miles in 60 minutes, you were going 75 MPH in a 65 MPH zone. so... guess what, you were speeding! don't speed!
don't get pissed off that they're getting more efficient at enforcing the laws. get pissed off that the laws exist in the first place.
It's not perfect, but it's a step in the right direction.
I don't know, they'll probably just create ID cards that cannot be degaussed. What about a card whose entire surface is a hologram, where any portion of the card is as valid as the whole. You'd have to vaporise such a card to bypass it, which means you'd just have to go get a new card.
I.e., perhaps the card itself is the issue.
Healthcare article at Kuro5hin
Don't worry. The ticket won't stick. They can't prove it was you driving the car.
Now, if they hand you a ticket at the exit toll that's different.
Killfile(TGK)
No trees were killed in the creation of this post. However, many electrons were inconvenienced.