Police requests for Oyster data rises

March 13th, 2006

Oyster data use rises in crime clampdown
Staff and agencies
Monday March 13, 2006

Police hunting criminals are increasingly seeking information from electronically stored travel records, such as those created by users of the popular Oyster card in London.

Figures disclosed today show a huge leap in police requests to Transport for London, which operates the Oyster cards used to travel on buses, trains and the underground.

Just seven information requests were made by police in the whole of 2004, compared with 61 requests made in January this year alone…

http://technology.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,,1730002,00.html

This was bound to happen of course.

If you really want to have an Oyster card, (and TFL gives you a good reason to use one; bus fares are £1 with Oyster instead of £1.50 when you pay cash for example) you must:

  • Make sure you have an anonymous Oyster card; you can buy them for £3
  • NEVER fill your Oyster with your credit card or debit card, use only cash. If you update Oyster with a card that is connected to you, your Oyster will be connected to you via the details on the card.
  • Never use someone elses Oyster. If they are a criminal, and you use their card, the police might swipe you coming off or getting on the underground*.

*Now, the last one is not true…yet, but you can guarantee that in the future the police will have realtime access to Oyster touc-ins and touch-outs. That means that when a criminal gets onto a bus, they can tell the driver not to open the doors until they get there. The same with the trains. They can tell the driver to stay in the tunnel until they get to the next station where they can sweep the whole train.

5 Responses to “Police requests for Oyster data rises”

  1. alex_tea Says:

    I still don’t have an Oyster, even though it would make sense economically and for convenience.

  2. irdial Says:

    Why not?

  3. alex_tea Says:

    Because I am lazy. And I don’t want them tracking me.

  4. Alun Says:

    Every time I see things like this I am reminded of William Gibson’s presience… All the intelligent characters in his books use disposable anonymous phonecards, public phones, cash only or anonymous cashcards (for which you WILL pay a premium price), and so on…

    The future is now. And that rosy glow is nothing but pollution in the sky. That comforting warmth, a bonfire of the liberties.

    Soon, above the MI6 building, will be unveiled the great unblinking eye of Sauron! One card to rule them all…

  5. irdial Says:

    How can they track you with an anonymous card that you recharge with cash? They have’nt put face recognition into the underground CCTV system yet, so you are safe from ‘tracking’ for the moment with an anonymous card.

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