BBC NEWS | Technology | Smart cards track commuters
Civil rights campaigners have expressed concerns about the new smart travelcards introduced for London commuters.
Under the new system, Transport for London will be able to track a commuter's movements and it plans to retain information on journeys made for "a number of years"
Each card has a unique ID number linked to the registered owner's name, which is recorded together with the location and time of the exchange every time the card is used.
Another interesting use for Smart cards and the worries civil rights campaigners have. While I can quite clearly see their point and have sympathy for the view, it also could have considerable advantages for those organisation running the transport system. This type of information, due to developments in technology, will now become commonplace. The question then becomes not whether the data is held, because it will be like it or not, but whether the organisation that holds it uses the information ethically.
Marketing ethics, often seen as an anathema, reside at the heart of this debate. Can you trust the organisation to make use of the data anonymously? The answer to that of course is up to a point. There have been examples of the Inland revenue (UK tax office) requesting data from supermarkets of people they suspect of having more earnings than they report. This particular card could track your movements around London by rail and in the future maybe the whole of the UK.
Should you be worried? Well the old argument goes that if you are a law abiding citizen you have nothing to hide, so why worry. Alternatively you could argue that what you do in a 'free' society is up to you as long as you don't break any laws, so why should others have access to this information?
Privacy is up to individual's and they will need to work very hard to keep it that way. Loss of privacy could be important in some respects to a wider societal view but we must be ever vigiliant to protect what few rights we still maintain in this area. Even with laws in the UK and Information Commisioners to help us.
Posted by Paul Goodison at September 29, 2003 11:58 AM | TrackBack