Oyster card police surveillance requests soar in 2010

I’ve recently reported on Oyster Cards and the costly problem of

over-charging due to faulty machines or unmanned, open barriers, so it may

interest you to know that Oyster Card users have been trailed by police a record

number of times this year and it’s set to increase.

I have been completely unaware that my bus journey from Leicester Square to

Holborn or my train journey from Charing Cross station to Hastings for a day by

the sea could be monitored by the police (though I doubt I’ve done anything to warrant

scrutiny, honest guv’nor!)

Transport for London has revealed that the Met made 6,576 requests for

information about tube, rail and bus travellers this year, a rise of nearly 20%

on 2009 and this type of surveillance is expected to increase.

"As Oyster cards become more widely used, it is likely that such

requests will rise in proportion with their usage," said a Metropolitan

Police spokesperson.

The increase in Oyster card surveillance was discovered by the Green Party

through TfL’s own figures, yet out of the 6,576 requests for information on

passengers, 810 were refused due to the huge increase in the demand for this

information.

As the requests for this useful passenger information grows and more transport

staff face job losses, it seems that TfL will struggle to fulfil the burgeoning

requests from the police and this is where the problem lies according to Noel

Lynch, chair of the Green Party in London, who said; "There is clearly a

risk that TfL could be overwhelmed with requests or otherwise pressured into

handing over personal data without sufficient checks," said "It is

concerning that TfL already have to reject about 1 in 8 police requests for

this information."

How do you feel about personal data concerning your travel habits potentially being

dished out by a TfL department who perhaps do not have the time to ensure the correct

information is dispensed? Couple this with the fact that the data may well be

incorrect from the outset due to incorrect charging and faulty readers and you

have a recipe for disaster methinks. What do you think? Is this form of surveillance

a good resource of information for the met or too inconsistent and problematic?