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UK: Oyster card a "straightforward investigative tool"

01 January 2006

The Metropolitan police force has said that it uses data stored on Oyster cards - which are used by approximately five million Londoners to travel on the bus, underground or train - to track the movement of suspected criminals. The smartcards, which were only introduced in 2003, have a unique identification number and record details of each journey a traveller makes over an eight week period. The cards have been the subject of an expensive London-wide campaign to encourage their use by commuters by the Mayor of London. This has seen extensive advertising and the price of the card has been pegged, while other forms of ticket have risen sharply. In January 2006 the police requested journey information 61 times - in 2004 there were seven requests. In total 243 requests for information have been made by the police and access has been granted on 223 occasions.

The Met has described the Oyster card as "a straightforward investigative tool". A Transport for London (TfL) spokesman assured their customers that there was "no bulk disclosure of personal data to third parties for any commercial purposes." However, Heather Brooke from Privacy International said that it was "outrageous", pointing out that "Londoners are already the most watched people on earth".

BBC News 13.3.06; Privacy International http://www.pivacyinternational.org