Don't be paranoid just 'cos they're out to get you. We know where you live and what brand of breakfast cereal you eat. Sinister, eh?

The DNA imprinting will commence as soon as you are used to using the card.

Use of the card will soon be required by the elimination of cash money being accepted for fares.

Do you seriously expect the cattle who live in London to complain about being trackable when they use public transport? It is not like the state has been shooting people dead on their way to work... oh, hang on.

No Name, No Address?

Just Lie.

It's very simple, and not even illegal (yet). Better still, you can use it as identification for all the other things the state insists on.

I tried it once, with a television licence. Worked a treat. Library card, telephone, all in a false name.

Everyone has the right to self-defence, don't they?

No. You're right. That was an inane remark. Of course people don't have the right to self-defence. The State is here to protect us. Ask Tony Martin. Ask Jean-Charles de Menendez. Sorry for cluttering up your website with such stupidity.

At present an unregistered Oyster card is pretty useless to Crapita. What they so dearly want is your age, address, occupation and full details of your income and spending history in order that such information will be of further financial use to their clients. I would expect that by the end of this year you might find that your card suddenly becomes invalidated and you are then required to fill out a more detailed application form, as so many people had to do when the Oyster card came out. As I recall those unfortunates also had to pay London Underground/Capita £3.00 for the privilege of owning one of those cards.

Of course, I have a personal experience from the other side, which is that my Oyster Card was stolen, and with the help of London Underground I was actually able to track down the culprit based on his movements. Of course, this rather proves Brian's point rather than disproves it.

Another annoying thing is that when I use the Docklands Light Railway,it is not always possible to swipe the card at the other end to complete the electronic payment, which means that when I top the card up, I get a problem.

Definitely something a bit strange about this, but then it is possible to get a card on a totally fake ID.

Not to rain on your parade of (somewhat justified) paranoia but times and routes would be the minimal information one would need to audit the use of the card. Without that information there would be no means resolving disagreements over the value of the card. It's no different than a credit card company capturing information about individual transactions.

I just read Shannon's comment as I was about to post something similar myself. I'll post it anyway Every flight you've ever taken is in the airlines' records somewhere. This has been the case for quite some time now ("quite some time now" means I don't know how long, but certainly over a decade). And it's worse, because it has your name, as do credit card transactions. So I think this Oyster card deal is anodyne in comparison.

What it's building up to, though, is not.

Every mobile phone call you make on a GSM network logs which cell towers you were connected to and how you moved between them. CDMA and WCDMA can actually be worse as the Location Based Services component is better implemented.

If somebody wanted to, they could also track you that way too.

Want to stop using your phone now?

You can go back to using cash, don't use mobile phones, credit cards and buy individual tickets. It is your choice.

They can track your movements, but remember they can only identify you from your Oyster card if you use a cash card to pay for it. If you are ever detained by the authorities, try to get rid of your Oyster card and similar items you have so they cannot track your previous movements. I don't have any credit or debit cards because, as with the Oyster card, they can be used to track your movements and monitor you. Everyone just lets this happen - they carry around all manner of bugs and tracking devices voluntarily, the mobile phone most of all. Even if you avoid the obvious devices, like the mobile and credit cards, even paper money in the UK can be used to track your movements, using the metallic "anti-counterfeiting" security strips inside, which are actually used for Radio Frequency Identification (RFID, first developed by the Soviets). If you are arrested by the police they take your money and scan it and then they can see where you've been and who you've been in contact with by following the recorded trail of the note in question. But you can wipe the RFID by microwaving notes for five seconds.

Everyone just lets this happen

No, people chose to let this happen because life with it happening is, generally, better than life before it used to happen.

I don't want to go back to having to get to the bank to cash cheques, I need to be able to travel globally with easy means of payment which are not cash based. I like life with my mobile and WCDMA pda.

Most people, especially those who lived through them, don't want to go back to living in the 70s regardless of how much fun _Life on Mars_ looks.

You can take a poll if you like, but I don't think most people give a rat's arse about privacy if faced with losing their mobile and credit cards.

Either we make damn sure there are the mechanisms to deal with the solutions we have in place, or we should wave goodbye to privacy for absolutely everybody and damn the consequences. I suspect we'll reach accomodations, but wishing certain technologies back into the box isn't going to work.

On a side note, the more work I've seen done by my company around RFID tracking, the less worried I am about it. We've seen several projects canned recently because for most practical applications involving trying to scan lots of things at the same time and track them, it doesn't work well enough to be worth implementing.

It may get better but perfect, like biometric identification, it is never going to be.

Jonathan,

You might be interested to know that this system has been used here in Hong Kong for about 5 years, only that the card is called Octopus instead of Oyster.

At first it was exactly like it is in London now, i.e. no name, no registration, used only on the tube.

In the meantime, you can use the Octopus card for just about anything, i.e. supermarkets, coffee houses, car parks etc. Indeed, in some cases, such as car parks you MUST use the Octopus card.

Also, people are now being coerced into registering their names, address and ID card # (yes, they are compulsory in HK) on their Octopus card since you would otherwise not qualify for discounts. In other words, if you go shopping at the supermarket and want to receive a discount you must present a registered Octopus card, a non-registered one won't do.

Brave New World.

Regarding mobile phones, a strange thing happened to me recently. I had been using a friend's (spare) mobile since I came to Taiwan because you cannot get your own mobile until the authorities have issued you your 'alien residence card' (basically an ID card). I had been meeting my friend's sister every month to pay the bill. Then in december the bill increased by around 100%. As it was a fixed contract with the same bill every month (unless you start trying to call England or something) and I hadn't made any more than my usual calls, I thought it was very strange so asked my friend's sister why the bill had gone up. She said she wasn't sure but that it was something to do with the company being taken over and changing a policy or two. I asked her to cancel the contract and I went off (now I've had my alien residence card for ages) to get my own mobile number. The final bill for the old number in January, after I had cancelled the contract, went back down to its' usual amount.

Because I have my own mobile number registered using my alien residence card, presumably the state has means to track and identify me. Previous to this, since I was using someone else's phone not registered to me at all, the state (or the phone company) may have been able to track my movements, but would not have known who I was - though they may have guessed, from reading the change in calls, that the phone had changed hands to a new owner.

I'm not satisfied with the explanation of why the bill had suddenly risen 100% in december, and have asked my friend's sister to bring me the old contract and I can show it to my girlfriend (my Chinese is not good enough) and we can check it over. As yet I'm still waiting (she is in Australia for chinese new year).

No, people chose to let this happen because life with it happening is, generally, better than life before it used to happen.

No they do not choose. People were given the "choice" of paying £3.00 for a single ticket in Central London or using an Oyster card. From that I think you can ascertain that life is certainly not better for paying £3 for what, until January this year, was a £2 fare.

No they do not choose

But in general they DO choose.

Nobody is forced to take out a supermarket loyalty card, with its attendant tracking of purchasing and analysis for marketing purposes or sale of personal details. But people DO choose to do it because by doing so they can save money on their grocery bills. Equally, nobody is forced to use an Oyster card.

The same applies to pretty much any of these systems which can in principle be used to track and - if you're paranoid - control to an extent. They have a downside, but they also have upsides in financial savings and/or greater convenience. People can choose which is more important, and the paranoid will eschew the cost/convenience savings but many normal people will accept a degree of intrusion as the price of convenience or saving.

Any time you use a bank card, a credit card, a loyalty card, a cash machine, a mobile phone, or any time you buy something online, "they" know where you are and what you're doing. The alternative is a cash economy with its attendant increased cost and inconvenience, no mobile phones, restricted internet use, and so on. Most people don't want that.

Then again, most people also realise that we no longer live in an 18th century agrarian nirvana.

EG

PIMF at 05:44h

Jonathan = Brian

Good points, EG. I think some of the concerns about privacy are unwarranted, although goodness knows we live in a time when there are some grounds for worry. The dangers arise when the State tries to get its hands on that information without the consent of the persons concerned. If one wants to avoid any potential loss of privacy in having a store card, don't have one. I am sure that in a free market, some folk may prefer the higher prices/inconvenience to loss of privacy. That is a perfectly valid decision to take and is the sort of trade-off one can make all the time.

The key, to repeat, is keeping all this data out of State hands. That is where libertarian concerns should start.

The Oystercard, unlike its predecessor the Travelcard, does not require you to show a photograph of yourself on boarding a bus or passing a station barrier. Hence you can lend it to anyone. There is no proof (unless corroborated by, say, CCTV) that the Oystercard purchaser ever used it.

Moreover, one can renew the Oystercard by telephone and no personal questions beyond the basic name and address are asked. Or you can buy it in a newsagent paying anonymous folding money-- even a yearly card costing almost £2,000.

So much as I enjoy anti-state paranoia, I fear this particular system for pinning us down has a few flaws.

I dunno. I think all this data coming into the government hands is offset by how incompetent they are in the collecting it. The chances of tracking someone non-specific via these systems is minute. They have reams of CCTV and Oyster useage and bank details which is impossible to keep track of. So really, they are only going to use it when they already suspect someone. And they probably don't have the resources to track fo low level crime.

"So really, they are only going to use it when they already suspect someone."

But nic, that is the point!! They will suspect someone of organising an embarassing political protest for example, and have them arrested before they can start.

goodness knows we live in a time when there are some grounds for worry

Indeed, but we also live in a time where society is more complex than before. We have vast high-density urban populations, complex economies, increased personal wealth and leisure time and innumerably more possibilities for pursuits both legitimate and not. It is simply not possible to have such a complex society supported by the simple rules and procedures that applied in radically different times. It is therefore pretty much inevitable that ALL modern societies and states are going to be more intrusive and invasive, especially when seen from a pre-industrial perspective via rose tinted retrospectacles, simply because that's the price of complex interdependency.

The dangers arise when the State tries to get its hands on that information without the consent of the persons concerned

I think it is also important to consider the dangers of corporate interests getting their hands on the same data with the same lack of consent. The corporation and its shareholders have a direct pecuniary interest in exploiting your data, whereas the state in almost all circumstances does not. Whilst it is perfectly true that the destructive potential of the state in this respect is far greater than the corporation, it is also far less likely to do much with the data.

I think one has to ask what exactly the state is going to do when armed with detailed information about one's trips on the London Underground, or about how much of what brand of lavatory paper one buys.

The key, to repeat, is keeping all this data out of State hands.

It should be to keep it out of the hands of those most likely to exploit it. This can be, but is not necessarily, the state.

EG

EG,

Whilst it is perfectly true that the destructive potential of the state in this respect is far greater than the corporation, it is also far less likely to do much with the data.

You're right, but the other key difference is that of motive. Generally a corporation wants to sell me things, and it cares what I do only insofar as my propensity to spend can be exploited. It is neutral as to my behaviour, and to seeks to serve me where our interests coincide. The state monitors me only for bureaucracy for its own sake or in order to have the option of exercising control, however incompetently or incompletely it does so. The state is neutral as to my interests (as defined by me), and but will always be prepared to take a view on my behaviour as either approved or disapproved.

What do you do in months with an "R" in them?

You're right, but the other key difference is that of motive

Well, yes, that was rather my point. The corporation has a greater motive - and a direct one, linked to its very raison d'etre - to exploit your data for gain than has the state. The corporation is far more likely to do it.

What is the state going to do with all this vast amount of general information? Unless it suspects you're doing something it doesn't like and that thing is important enough to the state to warrant investigation, it is VERY unlikely that it's going to do much with it. I'm more likely to keep it on file somewhere in case I need to investigate you in the future. Having said that, the proposal that the state could flog ID data to private companies to offset the cost of the scheme is somewhat disquieting and should not be permitted, IMO.

Another consideration is the sheer volume of data. a business may have a great many customers, but few businesses serve the entire nation. The state sits above ALL the people. It's hard enough to do much intrusion and control with fairly specific data relating to a few hundred thousand people, but it's even less easy to do it with general data relating to an entire national population. However, start selling that information to marketers and we ARE going to be affected directly by the data the state has - but the effect will be made by business, not the state.

In either case, it is necessary to have regulation which requires disclosure. Regulation requires effective sanction if it is to work, and hence we are going to have either corporations being regulated and punished by the state or we are going to have the state submitting itself to the law. More or less, we have both in Britain. I think as long as that situation obtains, there is little cause for excessive alarm.

EG

Luniversal is not quite right: if you live in zones A-D and opt for a season ticket or if you claim any discounts (Student or Youth) you have to have a photocard.

I qualify on both points so have no legitmate choice, unless I want to pay more for the same service. If you read this I'm sure you'll come to the same conclusion as me that photocards are inevitable for all frequent tube users.

Unsubstantiated rumour, but most things to do with intelligence are: an acquaintance who has some association with the Security Service suggests that EDS/TfL were more than usually resistant to the informal pressure to give access to Oyster data. No information forthcoming about whether formal steps were then taken, though I imagine they must have been.

State surveillance in Britain is subject to the forms of law only when it needs to be.

The question remains - what is the state actually going to do with this information?

EG

The question remains - what is the state actually going to do with this information?

Whatever it want to. It rather depends on who they are tracking and why. And of course the easier it gets to track people, the more the state will do it for an ever wider number of reasons.

...uh...why don't you just by two cards? Or three? Then simply don't use the same one two times in a row.

And of course the easier it gets to track people, the more the state will do it for an ever wider number of reasons

And these reasons would be what, exactly?

It's all very well to raise concern and alarm about the government tracking and controlling us all, but it's hard to take this seriously unless you can posit some plausible things it is actually going to do. I can't recall too many of these being discussed when this issue has been raised before.

WHY is the government inevitably going to track us all? WHAT is it going to do with this information? HOW is it going to use it to control us?

EG

It's all very well to raise concern and alarm about the government tracking and controlling us all, but it's hard to take this seriously unless you can posit some plausible things it is actually going to do. I can't recall too many of these being discussed when this issue has been raised before.

Because few people are so naive to need it spelled out.

WHY is the government inevitably going to track us all? WHAT is it going to do with this information? HOW is it going to use it to control us?

Because governments are about controlling people (for good or ill), therefore the people who control and work for government are always looking for more ways to control people. It is what they do. Companies want information so they can sell you stuff. Governments want information so they can control you. Self evident.

One way they do that is to look at people who do things the government do not like, such as terrorists or private sector criminals or people who want to moderate how governments control people, such as political enemies from the wrong political party or activists of some sort or other.

Tracking what people who the state does not like can provide the state with revealing information about what such people do and who they meet and when. This can provide ways to discredit/prosecute them. The easier it is to access tracking data (i.e. the lower the cost), the more people who work for the state will be inclined to use it to see what people they do not like (either institutionally or personally) are doing and see if it reveals patterns of behaviour that might give leverage over them.

If tracking people requires sending a cop in a trench coat to tail them, that is not just a large expenditure of resources, it requires many people to be involved in the process and therefore agree that doing this is an acceptable use of state resources. If tracking someone involves simply logging into a government on-line resource, entering a target ID of some sort and then reading a summary of their movement, doing this will be something even low level functionaries do as an adjunct to whatever their job is (tax authorities, socialised medical authorities, police, the local councillors you keep poking fun at during public planning meetings). Curious how often someone you suspect of being a whistle blower deviates from their usual movements? Simple to find out. Think someone (maybe even a politician) is having a gay affair and want to see where they go? The possibilities are endless but the one thing you can b sure of is that the cheaper it gets to do, the more ways government people will find to use and abuse it.

"WHAT is it going to do with this information?"

Use it indirectly for purposes of self-defence, e.g. the surveillance of suspected terrorists. This may or may not be effective, but it is open to deliberate abuse and dangerously incompetent handling - which is the more substantive point.

IIRC it was mentioned earlier that a government probably doesn't have the resources for surveillance of low level crime. Yet the Blair government's 'respect agenda' is all about that. Surveillance of socially 'disruptive' people may be used in a crackdown on drug-use for example, and yet because of the vague nature of the policy's target (anti-social behaviour) should we be surprised were the use of such surveillance extended to include other 'anti-social' groups such as political protestors?

Because few people are so naive to need it spelled out

Alternatively, some people don't inhabit the same paranoid fantasy land as others.

Your argument really is little more than a paranoid assumption that the gummint is out to get you, and it will do this for no better reason than that it can do it.

Think someone (maybe even a politician) is having a gay affair and want to see where they go?

Arguably, wholly private interests such as the News of the World are much more effective and persistent intruders in this respect, as we have seen recently. Why worry about government goons trailing you - the government is, after, so hopelessly inefficient and hideously incompetent that it could not manage a whelk stall, let alone track and control 60 million people - when the far greater threat to your privacy is the tabloid press?

Or perhaps the News of the World is merely the public face of MI5? After all, only the state would so intrusive, wouldn't it?

EG

Bugger. Should look like this:

Because few people are so naive to need it spelled out

Alternatively, some people don't inhabit the same paranoid fantasy land as others.

Your argument really is little more than a paranoid assumption that the gummint is out to get you, and it will do this for no better reason than that it can do it.

Think someone (maybe even a politician) is having a gay affair and want to see where they go?

Arguably, wholly private interests such as the News of the World are much more effective and persistent intruders in this respect, as we have seen recently. Why worry about government goons trailing you - the government is, after, so hopelessly inefficient and hideously incompetent that it could not manage a whelk stall, let alone track and control 60 million people - when the far greater threat to your privacy is the tabloid press?

Or perhaps the News of the World is merely the public face of MI5? After all, only the state would so intrusive, wouldn't it?

EG

Alternatively, some people don't inhabit the same paranoid fantasy land as others.

In other words "We want to regulate your life but trust us anyway. Never mind that we also want simple access to your email records, limit your right to trial by jury, want CCTV everywhere and place limits of free speech, there is no reason for concern and anyone who sees a pattern here is clearly a paranoid nutter." Got it.

Arguably, wholly private interests such as the News of the World are much more effective and persistent intruders in this respect, as we have seen recently. Why worry about government goons trailing you - the government is, after, so hopelessly inefficient and hideously incompetent that it could not manage a whelk stall, let alone track and control 60 million people - when the far greater threat to your privacy is the tabloid press?

Ah, as a relative newcomer here, I wasn't sure why you get so much abuse thrown at you but now I understand. You evade reasonable replies that you really cannot answer. My point was clearly that by making it cheap to track people (i.e. cheaper that the state or the News of the World hiring someone to follow you around), you make it much more likely that the people with access to that information will use it offensively (and clearly it is the state, not the News of the World who will have access to that information).

Yet because your disingenuous reply just ignores the point I was making. I can see why some people really don't like you.

Or perhaps the News of the World is merely the public face of MI5? After all, only the state would so intrusive, wouldn't it?

I doubt anti-government activists have much that would interest the News of the World (unless there are also former Big Bruvva contestants with big tits), but then given that your remarks are a smokescreen, I do not intend to dignify you with any further replies.

In other words [...]

Wrong. There is good cause for concern regarding restriction of free speech & assembly and the recent tinkerings with the administration of justice. However, paranoid drooling about the panopticon state and its supposed inevitable desire to control and regulate everyone and everything merely ensures that the concern is lost amidst the derision that such a position engenders. Actually, the desire comes more from a particular political philosophy lately in the ascendant, not from the existence of the state per se.

We live in a complex interdependent society with massive urban populations. This does require much more regulation and control than a bucolic pre-industrial society, and this has to be borne in mind. However, people should only accept a reasonable degree of regulation & restriction and they should highlight concerns about excess. This must be done in a sensible manner, and paranoid hysteria about police states and universal control simply ensures you aren't taken seriously.

You evade reasonable replies that you really cannot answer

No, I don't. It's obvious that cheap tracking systems make it easier to track & that's hardly at issue. It is not at all obvious why this necessarily means that the state will attempt to use this information to control people, and that IS the issue which I'm trying to get at.

I doubt anti-government activists have much that would interest the News of the World

Anti-government activists are going to attract the attention of the police and security services anyway, no matter how much or how little surveillance there is. Do you expect the ability to protest and complain about the state without the state having a look to see whether you intend to make your protest somewhat more, shall we say, direct? Again, there are reasonable concerns, and there are unreasonable ones. Play up the latter, and the former will be tarred with the same brush of paranoia & unliberal measures will go through by default.

The point about the NotW was that tabloid rags in this country are much more intrusive and invasive against people who AREN'T anti-government activists. If you are an anti-government activist, you should expect state interest in your affairs, in ANY society.

EG

This does require much more regulation and control than a bucolic pre-industrial society, and this has to be borne in mind.

Wrong, beacuse you mean state regulation. In fact unlike a pre-industrial society, which lives one harvest away from starvation, a modern dynamically linked economy and the societies they produce need less state regulation as markets and societies will regulate themselves in order to work (for example most stock market 'regulations' are imposed by the market not the state). Your lack of understanding regarding this is why you are wrong about more or less everything. Your axioms are stuck in the past.

Euan Gray writes, on 28th Jan at 1221: “Nobody is forced to take out a supermarket loyalty card, with its attendant tracking of purchasing and analysis for marketing purposes or sale of personal details. But people DO choose to do it because by doing so they can save money on their grocery bills. Equally, nobody is forced to use an Oyster card.”

This, among other points made by EG, has some validity. However, I would like to challenge the equivalence of commercial enterprise and government on grounds (other than those already done, including motivation) of: (i) monopoly versus non-monopoly; and (ii) governmental versus non-governmental.

On point (i), no supermarket has a monopoly, nor any seriously effective monopoly on the basis of geographic limitation. However, London Transport does have a monopoly. This is a particularly effective monopoly for the underground railway, on the basis of offering (ie typically low and somewhat reliable transit times between many locations and also lowish price). This monopoly is clear over central London, where there are no other railway operators; it is also substantial (on a geographical basis, despite other railway operators) for large swathes of greater London.

As a monopoly operator, it strikes me that London Transport should not place restrictions on price/performance that have motivation other than that of cost effectiveness (ie through off-peak travel, bulk purchase discounts etc). Thus London Transport failing to provide bulk purchase discounts to cash purchasers of printed tickets should not be tolerated, beyond the actual cost difference (ie the cost of printing said tickets, which certainly does not cost it £1 each).

On point (ii), I see it as tolerable that any private enterprise (acting outside a monopoly) can offer such business terms as it chooses; purchaser can like this, lump it or purchase elsewhere. However, this option should NOT be available to government, through monopoly action or otherwise, at any level: local, national, agency, licensed monopoly or other. Government must act fairly and be seen so to act.

Preferential pricing of rail tickets on the basis of payment method should not be allowable to government except to the extent that this is justifiable on the basis of actual costs. Thus, London Transport should (in addition to the point made above under discussion on (i) concerning monopoly) be precluded from charging a premium beyond the approximate actual cost difference. This is on the basis that it is government.

Best regards

Wrong, beacuse you mean state regulation

Right, in fact, because I just mean regulation. If society won't regulate itself - and in our current culture it doesn't seem to want to do this - then it is pretty much inevitable that the state is going to do it. Something must. I have no problem with the state regulating where other arguably more suitable entities are failing to do it.

a modern dynamically linked economy and the societies they produce need less state regulation as markets and societies will regulate themselves in order to work

In theory. But they don't always and right now society isn't regulating itself. Stock markets aren't particularly good examples, by the way. Or rather, they are good examples of how certain kinds of markets can regulate themselves but that example doesn't necessarily transfer well to other markets & it is a mistake to assume that the same rules always apply. Markets in physical goods are somewhat different.

EG

What rubbish. People who think like you have so knotted up society and the economy with state regulations it is a splendid marvel that so many self-regulatory mechanisms appear as they do. It is the conceit of people like you who think that their force backed 'solutions' will be better than a market driven alternative which lies at the root of so many problems. You regulate a problem into existence and then propose a regulation as the solution. It is a self perpetuating process much beloved to by the looting classes the world over.

“But in Huxley's vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy…As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.” – taken from a Wikipedia link to the forward of Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves To Death.

Just in case anyone's still reading this thread. (Link)

How sad.

I have re-read 1984. It's a genius of a book and a vision of the future that is much more familiar than actually in 1984.