A WORD IN YOUR SHELL-LIKE

The civil rights organisation, Liberty, has raised concerns about privacy implications of Transport for London’s Oyster smart card scheme. The cards allow journeys and season-tickets to be paid for in advance and can be easily swiped over ticket-gates without being put into the machine. However, they also have an individual ID number and record the contact details of the owner and all of the journeys he or she has made. Although London Transport has said that the information about journeys made will be stored for planning purposes only, Liberty remains unconvinced, fearing the onslaught of “function creep.” According to its campaigns director, Mark Littlewood: “All too often we have seen data collected for one apparent purpose, only for it to end up being used for something entirely different.” In fact, John Monk, of the Oyster Project has admitted that the information could be used as evidence in criminal trials.

The IPKat will keep a watching brief on this story. If the information genuinely is only used anonymously for planning purposes, its collection and retention is unobjectionable. There may be more serious concerns it is used for other purposes but in that case there will be Data Protection Act implications.

Invade an oyster’s privacy here or here
Grow your own oysters here
Have fun eating oysters here


A WORD IN YOUR SHELL-LIKE <strong>A WORD IN YOUR SHELL-LIKE</strong> Reviewed by Anonymous on Monday, September 29, 2003 Rating: 5

No comments:

All comments must be moderated by a member of the IPKat team before they appear on the blog. Comments will not be allowed if the contravene the IPKat policy that readers' comments should not be obscene or defamatory; they should not consist of ad hominem attacks on members of the blog team or other comment-posters and they should make a constructive contribution to the discussion of the post on which they purport to comment.

It is also the IPKat policy that comments should not be made completely anonymously, and users should use a consistent name or pseudonym (which should not itself be defamatory or obscene, or that of another real person), either in the "identity" field, or at the beginning of the comment. Current practice is to, however, allow a limited number of comments that contravene this policy, provided that the comment has a high degree of relevance and the comment chain does not become too difficult to follow.

Learn more here: http://ipkitten.blogspot.com/p/want-to-complain.html

Powered by Blogger.