5 ms·

Yeah, booo to cities looking to optimize affluence and patterns, hopefully for more efficient lines and service, with the help of consumer data and recurring ha

Yeah, booo to cities looking to optimize affluence and patterns, hopefully for more efficient lines and service, with the help of consumer data and recurring habits, or offering convenient service as in recovering lost cards. Booo !

bmomb 8y ago
Do you really need to track every time that each individual move to do that?
- abandonliberty 8y ago
  What alternative measures would you propose for tracking volumes and trips?
  - mseebach 8y ago
    Track the fact that a journey took place, but not who took it.
    - tikkabhuna 8y ago
      The organisation that runs the Tube in London, TFL, did a project[0] where they tracked the path people took by their phone's WiFi signal (all anonymised). This was used to see what routes were preferred and how they could be optimised. Previously all they had was entry/exit data. [0] https://tfl.gov.uk/info-for/media/press-releases/2017/september/pilot-shows-how-wifi-data-can-improve-tube-journe https://tfl.gov.uk/info-for/media/press-releases/2017/septem...
hobofan 8y ago
There is a difference between collecting usage data of their customers and also requiring the user to provide their name address etc.. Of course with enough transportation usage data (+ maybe additional external data) the identity can be reconstructed in a lot of cases, but the same entity already collecting PII does indeed sound problematic.
mseebach 8y ago
> looking to optimize affluence and patterns, hopefully for more efficient lines and service, with the help of consumer data and recurring habits, or offering convenient service Oh, so the exact same reason Facebook tracks you. Except, of course, that it's relatively easy to not use Facebook, but it's a real, substantial cost to not use public transport in your city (or only using single journey cash tickets).
- hycaria 8y ago
  Neither one does matter to me actually. I already expressed similar views before. It's cool to have music suggestions based on what I like and not what's popular overall. I'm fine with my city's transit department optimizing stuff for everyone, and me being one of hundred of thousands of users. I don't matter, individuals overall don't matter, and there's a significant gain from it for the community. I don't know what is so wrong with it and why people are so offended that some tech literate people don't care.
  - vekker 8y ago
    In other words, you are one of those people who uses the "I have nothing to hide" argument in favor of rampant personal data collection.
    - hycaria 8y ago
      Yes, I have nothing that I, at some point, disclosed to a service or company to hide. Show me that it's implacably wrong and that it brings a global deficit for everyone and society overall then.
- def_true_false 8y ago
  Fare evasion and occasionally paying for the single journey ticket might be an option, depending on your location. I know of at least a few places where it won't cost much more than a card over the long run.
almost_usual 8y ago
It should be up to communities to make these decisions and if they value privacy more than efficiency than so be it. We shouldn't default to "Make things as efficient as possible at the cost of privacy implicitly and by default".
microcolonel 8y ago
Fat chance of that, if you've seen just how forward-thinking, efficiency-minded, or capable most (all?) public transit authorities are. You can recover lost cards without collecting personal data, by the way.

bmomb 8y ago

Do you really need to track every time that each individual move to do that?

abandonliberty 8y ago
What alternative measures would you propose for tracking volumes and trips?
- mseebach 8y ago
  Track the fact that a journey took place, but not who took it.
  - tikkabhuna 8y ago
    The organisation that runs the Tube in London, TFL, did a project[0] where they tracked the path people took by their phone's WiFi signal (all anonymised). This was used to see what routes were preferred and how they could be optimised. Previously all they had was entry/exit data. [0] https://tfl.gov.uk/info-for/media/press-releases/2017/september/pilot-shows-how-wifi-data-can-improve-tube-journe https://tfl.gov.uk/info-for/media/press-releases/2017/septem...

hobofan 8y ago

There is a difference between collecting usage data of their customers and also requiring the user to provide their name address etc.. Of course with enough transportation usage data (+ maybe additional external data) the identity can be reconstructed in a lot of cases, but the same entity already collecting PII does indeed sound problematic.

mseebach 8y ago

> looking to optimize affluence and patterns, hopefully for more efficient lines and service, with the help of consumer data and recurring habits, or offering convenient service Oh, so the exact same reason Facebook tracks you. Except, of course, that it's relatively easy to not use Facebook, but it's a real, substantial cost to not use public transport in your city (or only using single journey cash tickets).

hycaria 8y ago
Neither one does matter to me actually. I already expressed similar views before. It's cool to have music suggestions based on what I like and not what's popular overall. I'm fine with my city's transit department optimizing stuff for everyone, and me being one of hundred of thousands of users. I don't matter, individuals overall don't matter, and there's a significant gain from it for the community. I don't know what is so wrong with it and why people are so offended that some tech literate people don't care.
- vekker 8y ago
  In other words, you are one of those people who uses the "I have nothing to hide" argument in favor of rampant personal data collection.
  - hycaria 8y ago
    Yes, I have nothing that I, at some point, disclosed to a service or company to hide. Show me that it's implacably wrong and that it brings a global deficit for everyone and society overall then.
def_true_false 8y ago
Fare evasion and occasionally paying for the single journey ticket might be an option, depending on your location. I know of at least a few places where it won't cost much more than a card over the long run.

almost_usual 8y ago

It should be up to communities to make these decisions and if they value privacy more than efficiency than so be it. We shouldn't default to "Make things as efficient as possible at the cost of privacy implicitly and by default".

microcolonel 8y ago

Fat chance of that, if you've seen just how forward-thinking, efficiency-minded, or capable most (all?) public transit authorities are. You can recover lost cards without collecting personal data, by the way.