Privacy Commissioner - Te Mana Matapono Matatapu

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'Smart' transport payment systems

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On Locational Privacy, and How to Avoid Losing it Forever
Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) August 2009
Smart transport payment systems can collect personal information about your location - they can create a record of where you are and where you have been. This EFF webpage describes why locational privacy is at risk and suggests some alternative solutions.

Pothole en route to smartcard Nirvana
Stuff 27th July 2009
This article reports that the Transport Agency is interested in the data about passenger journeys that will be collected by Auckland's smartcard integrated ticketing scheme. The Transport Agency sees Auckland as a beginning for gathering information about all journeys taken on subsidised public transport in New Zealand.

EU privacy watchdog issues warning over transport monitoring
Out-Law.com 23rd July 2009
European authorities plan to co-ordinate transport provision across Europe, including public transport and private traffic on roads, in order to ease traffic problems. The European Data Protection Supervisor criticises the plans because they lack detail about how authorities will protect individual privacy, for example to prevent the tracking of individual travel.

Commuters to get nationwide travel cards?
ITPro 20th July 2009
The UK Government is lending support to the adoption of the ITSO smartcard standard for devices such as smartcards or cell phones that passengers on public transport use to pay their fare. Compliance with the standard enables a smartcard issued locally to work nationally on any other compatible system. (ITSO - Integrated Transport Smartcard Organisation)

School bus pass tracking scheme
BBC Online 10th June 2009
GPS satellite technology linked to a child's smart bus pass will track children on their way to school and let parents know if their child is playing truant.

Charge drivers for when and where they go
Sydney Morning Herald 31st May 2009
Smart cards, issued to Sydney drivers, combined with satellite tracking devices in their vehicles, will reduce city congestion and make paying for roads fairer, states the head of Sydney University's Institute for Transport and Logistics Studies.

Bank Card System Weighed For Metro
The Washington Post May 10th 2009
Credit cards may replace tickets, fare cards, smart cards, and cash for payment of fares by passengers on public transport. Transport authorities are testing systems in New York, Utah, Philadelphia, Chicago and Los Angeles.

Toll road's charging goes awry again
New Zealand Herald March 28th 2009
A technical problem with the automatic payment system on Auckland's Northern Gateway toll road caused motorists to be overcharged. The system automatically tops up users' prepaid toll accounts, and the fault duplicated deductions from users' credit cards.  

Cash will be one of several options for paying road tolls
New Zealand Herald 21st March 2009
Motorists will be able to opt, at some time in the future, to pay cash when using Auckland's Northern Gateway toll road. The automated payment system, which uses number plate recognition cameras, will continue to record the registration plates of cash-paying customers.

Is your toll booth ripping you off?
Examiner 3rd March 2009
Knowing some of the technical difficulties that these systems face may help you to evaluate some of the claims made about their accuracy.