Mozilla released their studies, and I’m seeing a growing number of posts on the Internet about cars and the privacy nightmare they entail. I remember how this issue wasn’t talked about earlier because “just buy an older car” was still prevalent. I’m so happy that people are taking notice. Thank you to this community and Mozilla for the work they are putting in!
My city doesn’t even have bus fare. It’s not like they’re grabbing my biometrics when I step in. They’re not trying to identify me when I walk on.
You just walk on, wait, then walk off.
It may not be the most private way of transport but it’s not actively collecting data on you, which is what this is about.
EDIT: Further, it’s just easier for a car to collect data on it’s owner. When you buy a car, you get a Title which registers the Vehicle Identification Number to the owners name. Then, when you’re driving, because you’re in public you’re required to have your Drivers License, Registration, Insurance, a License Plate and up-to-date Tabs all very specific identifiers that identify both the driver and the car. The cars sensors only have to identify the owner, to whom it is already registered, and so they know the data they’re collecting is from one person/one family.
I’ve seen my cities bus budget. They have cameras on the bus for the protection of drivers but can barely afford them. They’re definitely not dumping money into shit like facial recognition. I don’t even need an ID to ride the bus. I can walk on with empty pockets and no one is gonna tell me I can’t ride the bus without ID. If you drive without your license, you can get it taken away.
Maybe your city is different. But in my city, you have to use these RFID fare cards that have a unique number to identify it. Every time you use it, the location and time is logged. You can only buy these fare cards at designated places, which has a camera pointing directly at your face. Now, idk if they have facial recognition, but even if it doesn’t, all it takes is a human to link the card to your identity once, and your travels, past and future is accessible.
“Why don’t you just use a new one every time?” you might ask. Good question.
Each of these fare cards costs around $5, so it’s not very cost efficient to discard them for a little privacy. Plus, all that ewaste.
They actually let you have that $5 that it cost to buy the card to be added to your balance, but you have to register it on their website using your full name, email, phone number, and address. I never tried a vpn, but I suspect they block vpns, if they haven’t, they will likely do so in the near future.
Or you could choose to not register it, and lose out on the $5. But again, all it takes is one security guard thinking you look suspicious, and roll back the CCTV footage, and put the image of your face onto your fare card records. They don’t need to use some advanced facial recognition AI, just some human to save your face and connect it with your fare card identifier.
There is still a little privacy left: you can still use cash for buses (cash option is for buses only, no cash option for the subway), but soon, they’ll be removing that option.
If your city doesn’t already do this, they will soon.
The future will have no privacy, you can’t escape it. (Unless you live in the woods somewhere)
Good points, and I’m sorry to hear that’s happening in your area man.
I mean… I just explained why my city did away with fares entirely, so I don’t know about that.
I didn’t mean “your” as in you specifically, but other people (edit: in fact, most people around the world still have to pay fares) who might be reading this and still live in a place that charges fares.
Which is absolutely a fair take, it’s definitely happening in places, just thankfully not everywhere. Hopefully talking about it can lead more people to get involved in local politics and try to fight implementation of such systems. Thanks for informing me.
you live in utopia? (or luxemburg?)
May I ask which city (or at least country)? The no bus fares part is intriguing :)
US, Northwest. The fares only accounted for about 2% of the total budget for transit, and the city was looking into upgrading their fare-collector devices because the ones they had were getting really old and starting to fail. After they did the math, they realized it would cost them more to get the new fare-collectors bought and installed than it would to… just get rid of the fare collectors altogether. It was simply going to cost so much money that they would have had to increase fares to pay for it, and so they just said “screw it” and dropped fares entirely.
Amazing