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.
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)
We had an argument with the public transportation department (ytv) in the beginning of the year when "travel cards" were taken into use.
The tracking info was previously put in store for months, now it isn't permanently recorded.
Complain to your decisionmakers, it worked before.
My employer asked for a blood sample, urine sample, stool sample and sperm sample.. I gave them my underwear.
Trolling is a art,
# 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 real problem is this: your everyday actions generate a (continually growing) stream of data. But, under the present system, you don't have ownership rights to that data. There has been some recognition that you're a stakeholder who can demand corrections to some categories of data (for instance, credit reports), but it still belongs to someone else.
The law should be changed to explicitly state that you have an ownership interest in data that is derived from your transactions and movements. It may not be 100% ownership, but for the sake of argument, let's say it's 50/50. The only exception should be for journalism, since journalists are already constrained by libel laws. Then unauthorized dissemination of your personal information can fall under the increasingly draconian IP laws, and furthermore you will be entitled to a share of the revenues derived from sale of your data.
This still doesn't help with governments, but will put an economic constraint on the privatization of totalitarian control that's been progressing unchecked in developed countries.
Get your teeth into a small slice: the cake of liberty