Paul Corfield wrote:


I really don't think it is you know. There is simply too much data in
too technical a format for open ended access to the system to be of any
value whatsoever.

I'm not sure the two systems are especially comparable - the CC cameras
(which is what the police got in July 2007 when they asked for them to
be left on outside charging hours so they could use them as free ANPR
cameras) are obviously useful in directly tracking large lumps of
recognisable moving metal.

Oyster is a system comprising a lot of plastic cards moving about,
occasionally being flagged as being in a particular place, sometimes
under the name (if not the possession) of a particular individual,
sometimes not, sometimes reporting in real time (tubes, trains),
sometimes not (buses).

I'm not sure on that basis, that there's much to worry about, unless
they bring in compulsory registration, compulsory use, criminalisation
of people using someone else's card with permission, and compulsory
touch in/out on buses equipped with instant radio links to GCHQ, at
which point they become as intrusive and unnecessary as ID cards and I
go out and man barricades.

Currently they're a simple, easy, pleasant way of paying for public
transport - the major problem I hear aired outside the rarified UTL
atmosphere is that not every PT journey in London can take them yet.
SWT got a lot of stick locally when it looked like they were backsliding
on it, which is hardly the mark of a technology the shackles and annoys
people on a wide scale. SWT aren't going to price people off using
Oyster PAYG, after all, or if they are it's not in the public domain.

Tom