A recent Guardian article says that folks using the Oyster Card to enter the Transport for London system can easily have their movements tracked as they wander throughout the system. Police have already used the Oyster card data that is gathered each time you swipe the card to help catch criminals - in one case the stupid criminal robbed someone and then the next day used the purloined Oyster Card which officials then tracked until they caught him.
The article said that anyone could retrieve a record of their Transport for London peregrinations - a print out of their travels - might be a nice souvenir for tourists that TFL could sell - after you get home you log on and print out your London travels!

That's basically the entire point of the Oyster card system, to be able to track people. In most cases, not individual people, but just statistical data, in order to improve the functioning of the system.

Yes, the statistics will allow Tfl to operate more efficiently, but I think the major point of the Oyster system is to shift the logistics of ticket vending off TfL and onto the consumer. Once you've got your Oyster, they never have to see you again, and you're doing their data entry and collections for them. They won't even have to refill the ticket vending machines so often.

The additional savings gained by elimination of the production, inventorying, distributing, and securing of paper tickets is gravy. Oyster will also cut down on the amount of waste paper generated in London every day.

That's also true. But it also means you never have to see them again, which, given how wonderfully friendly most of them are, is a great shame. /sarcasm

Oh, grsing, you must have never had to deal with people working the booths in the NYC subway system. They make the London ones look like Mona Lisas.

"Hello could you tell me which train to get to Union Square, please?"
"gmenngag, %&$@&&$$, mfxghhmphff."

I've dealt with the NYC ones, too (and the DC ones, who aren't any friendlier). Maybe there's just something about working underground for mass transit that makes people unhappy (or attract trollish people, with troll in the fairy-tale, lurking under the bridge definition).

"in one case the stupid criminal robbed someone and then the next day used the purloined Oyster Card which officials then tracked until they caught him"

The best-known case so far was neater than that. They simply synchronised the transaction times with the CCTV footage (ubiquitous here). So they had photos of the guy.

Since he'd actually killed the robbery victim, the photographs appeared in the press and on TV. Even his chums were prepared to finger him under the circumstances.

Trouble is now it's out, of course, they'll all throw the cards away. Only the really, really stupid will try using them.

But then, since "Freakonomics" tells us most low-life crims make less than they'd get at McDs, there probably are an awful lot of very stupid muggers around.

Were they able to catch the thief because the Oyster card was registered by the user? When you buy the card, you have the option to register it for security purposes.

I don't recall providing any personal information when I purchased my Oyster card, and I didn't register it because it was just a 7 day card. If I were a commuter and had a longer (more expensive) travelcard, I'm sure I would have registered it.

I assume that tfl could "track" my Oyster card as I went through London, for their statistical purposes, but I don't think my card could actually be connected to me, assuming I paid with cash.

Two quick poionts...

1. You don't have to register an oyster card if you use it simply for a 7 day pass or as a prepaid card so they can track the # but they can't track you (unless they arrest you for something, find the oyster card and you try to use the excuse you were on the bus or on the tube) so it's not a big deal to me.

2. In many of the NE states in the US, we have to pay to use what people throughout the rest of the cuontry refer to as freeways....(they wouldn't have the gall to charge Californians to use their freeways although I know some toll highways are opening up there too as municipalities look for more and more ways to raise money) abut anyway...there is a thing known as ez pass...you speed through the toll booth and it registers the toll from a little receiver you put on your windshield...to encourage people to use ez pass, they sometimes lower tolls for using the ezpass. There are those civil liberty types who object to ezpass as it is a way they can track you and a deprivation of your civil liberties type of thing....

I suppose the time will come when we will all have something of the sort implanted in our bodies and pay for the air we breathe and allow big brother to track us everywhere.

I think implanted IDs would be a great idea. Then the whereabouts of criminals could be continuously monitored and we would all be safer.

Of course, the information would only be available to law enforcement upon presentation of a court order.

What? Oh. Never mind.

The FastPass that people are encouraged to use for crossing the bridges in the SF BayArea can also trace your movements. And of course most stores have cameras including in their parking lots. Believe I even read law enforcements have cameras that record everyone's faces at some sporting events here in the US. Big Brother at work!

London must hold the record for CCTV cameras everywhere - i forgot how many times it is an average person's picture is taken in London on any given day, but it's literally hundreds i've read. Not opposing, in fact if it makes the streets safer i'm all for it - it's only the criminals, like those Americans smoking Cuban cigars, that have to worry!

LOL PalQ! P.S. Didn't know people in London were photographed so often. I remember many years ago friends were in Europe and stopped for a few days in MonteCarlo and came home furious as that was the first place they had ever seen cameras. Vowed never to go back etc etc. Guess they are use to all the cameras now.

London definitely does take lots of pictures (multiple cameras on every bus), but how else would they enforce the congestion charge?

"...it's only the criminals...that have to worry!"

The problem with that is that the <u>government</u> gets to define what constitutes criminal behavior. Lately, it seems that opposing the Iraq war fits the definition.