The Times: Tech column - Oystercards/Paid-for searches
David Rowan on a travel card with a dark secret
IMAGINE the outcry if the Government declared it was introducing an electronic identity card in a few months, containing a microchip that would let thousands of public officials scrutinise everything from citizens' school truancy records to the library books they borrowed. Furthermore, these personal smartcards would be launched with almost no public consultation and with the backing only of obscure governmental committees. There would rightly be a stream of concerned editorials warning of the threat to personal privacy, with commentators bemoaning the back-door introduction of an apparent identity card.
But what if the smartcard was sold as nothing more emotive than a travel card - a high-tech, credit card-sized device designed to speed our way through our troubled public transport system? That would be a far more politically acceptable means of introducing a multi-function personal data card. And that, it seems, is what is happening in London with scarcely any debate.
If you have used the Tube recently, you will have noticed that the station ticket gates have been adapted to take electronic smartcards. The cards, to be tested this autumn for introduction in 2003, are designed to let passengers wave themselves quickly through the gates, without any direct contact. But the cards are intended to store far more information about you than mere travel fares.
The capital's "e-government agency", London Connects, is developing ambitious plans to use the cards to store personal data ranging from welfare entitlements to school attendance records. Working alongside local councils and the transport authority, London Connects intends that the smartcard will eventually be used to deliver a range of government services. "Once you have the card, then other organisations will be able to add services to it, and people can use it at the level they are comfortable with," says Mick Davies, a consultant to the agency. Over the next few years, these applications should expand to include what London Connects sees as "a wide range of services, from electronic cash payment to the provision of personal data without the need for form-filling".
Other bodies, from the police to private sponsors, are getting excited about the huge potential here. Yet there has been barely a whisper about the privacy implications of such a technology. Who will have access to your personal data under such a system? What if your card falls into the wrong hands? I am all for catching my train more quickly, but I do wonder why the bureaucrats are evading a public debate.
++++
IF AN INTERNET search engine was being paid to favour certain websites, you would expect that relationship to be disclosed. But a recent sales pitch raises worrying questions about how far we can can trust such sites as they battle to survive. Andrew Goodman, who runs a Toronto-based web marketing agency, was recently cold-called by a salesman from AltaVista and told that his clients could pay to have their sites indexed "much higher than through standard submission". So a website selling toothpicks, for instance, could rise above most other global toothpick emporia in the results pages.
This shocked Goodman: the company's official line is that "paid inclusion", as the practice is known, merely guarantees that a site is indexed and monitored. After he publicised his concerns last week, AltaVista responded by saying that the salesman's claims were "erroneous" and he "apparently misunderstood the weighting process used to rank data sources". There, for the moment, the matter rests. But with paid-for inclusion a growing trend among search sites, consumers deserve a tough new trading standards law ensuring that they are warned prominently of any commercial bias.
(The Times, October 8 2002)
IMAGINE the outcry if the Government declared it was introducing an electronic identity card in a few months, containing a microchip that would let thousands of public officials scrutinise everything from citizens' school truancy records to the library books they borrowed. Furthermore, these personal smartcards would be launched with almost no public consultation and with the backing only of obscure governmental committees. There would rightly be a stream of concerned editorials warning of the threat to personal privacy, with commentators bemoaning the back-door introduction of an apparent identity card.
But what if the smartcard was sold as nothing more emotive than a travel card - a high-tech, credit card-sized device designed to speed our way through our troubled public transport system? That would be a far more politically acceptable means of introducing a multi-function personal data card. And that, it seems, is what is happening in London with scarcely any debate.
If you have used the Tube recently, you will have noticed that the station ticket gates have been adapted to take electronic smartcards. The cards, to be tested this autumn for introduction in 2003, are designed to let passengers wave themselves quickly through the gates, without any direct contact. But the cards are intended to store far more information about you than mere travel fares.
The capital's "e-government agency", London Connects, is developing ambitious plans to use the cards to store personal data ranging from welfare entitlements to school attendance records. Working alongside local councils and the transport authority, London Connects intends that the smartcard will eventually be used to deliver a range of government services. "Once you have the card, then other organisations will be able to add services to it, and people can use it at the level they are comfortable with," says Mick Davies, a consultant to the agency. Over the next few years, these applications should expand to include what London Connects sees as "a wide range of services, from electronic cash payment to the provision of personal data without the need for form-filling".
Other bodies, from the police to private sponsors, are getting excited about the huge potential here. Yet there has been barely a whisper about the privacy implications of such a technology. Who will have access to your personal data under such a system? What if your card falls into the wrong hands? I am all for catching my train more quickly, but I do wonder why the bureaucrats are evading a public debate.
++++
IF AN INTERNET search engine was being paid to favour certain websites, you would expect that relationship to be disclosed. But a recent sales pitch raises worrying questions about how far we can can trust such sites as they battle to survive. Andrew Goodman, who runs a Toronto-based web marketing agency, was recently cold-called by a salesman from AltaVista and told that his clients could pay to have their sites indexed "much higher than through standard submission". So a website selling toothpicks, for instance, could rise above most other global toothpick emporia in the results pages.
This shocked Goodman: the company's official line is that "paid inclusion", as the practice is known, merely guarantees that a site is indexed and monitored. After he publicised his concerns last week, AltaVista responded by saying that the salesman's claims were "erroneous" and he "apparently misunderstood the weighting process used to rank data sources". There, for the moment, the matter rests. But with paid-for inclusion a growing trend among search sites, consumers deserve a tough new trading standards law ensuring that they are warned prominently of any commercial bias.
(The Times, October 8 2002)
posted by David Rowan at Tuesday, October 08, 2002
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