Results: RFID and Identity Management in everyday life - ITAS

Case #61: Transport for London (Oyster card)
Case ID 61, level 1
Title Transport for London (Oyster card)
Researcher Christian van ‘t Hof/ Sil Wijma
Timing 2002-2006
Geography London, UK
Environment Public transport
Technology Philips Semiconductors’ MIFARE Standard 1 Kbyte ICs in G&D and SchlumbergerSema cards
[3]
Maturity Fully operational
Function Payment
Owner Transport for London, TranSys
Maintainer Who maintains the database and readers?
Users Who uses the RFID tags to move through the environment
Other actors TranSys (consortium of Cubic, EDS, Fujitsu and WS Atkins), Transport for London (TfL) and
London Underground Limited (LUL)
Case story The Oyster card is a RFID-card for public transport in London. It can be used on trains, trams,
busses, metro and Docklands Light Railway (DLR). A Travelcard or Bus Pass season ticket can
be loaded on it, as well as travel value (cash) to pay as you go [1]. Reloading is possible via
ticket offices and machines, over the Internet and by telephone [1]. In London there are nearly
seven million bus and Underground journeys every day [3]. The Oyster card was introduced in
August 2002 for staff [3]. Using a Oyster card to ‘pay as you go’ is cheaper than buying paper
tickets [2]. The ‘pay as you go’ service was introduced in January 2004 [2].
Over 5 million people use a Oyster card [4].
A refundable deposit of a little over €4,- has to be paid when purchasing a Oyster card (unless
at least a monthly ticket is loaded to the card). Without registration the Oyster card is restricted
in such a way that only ‘pay as you go ‘and weekly tickets can be loaded [2]. The ‘pay as you
go’ service is not available on all public transportation in London; now most railroads in London
do not use the Oyster system. In 2008 this should be the case. A 'capping' system was
introduced on 27 February 2005, which guarantees that an Oyster card user will be charged no
more than the cheapest combinations of single tickets, travelcards and/or bus pass that cover
all journeys made that day. [2].
Although there have been different plans to use the Oyster card for small payments [6] TfL now
says it is to complex to realise this [].
Due to a malfunctioning of the system it has been out of use for one morning [7]. Another bug
made travelling impossible for some cardholders for some time [2, 8].
ID issue When purchasing the Oystercard, full personal detailes are required [11]
The police in very interested in using the journey data that is stored from travellers who use the
Oyster card. The number of request from the police has risen from seven in 2004 to 61 requests
made in January 2006 alone [4].
A spokesman of TfL said: "Transport for London complies fully with the Data Protection Act.
Information on individual travel is kept for a maximum of eight weeks and is only used for
customer service purposes, to check charges for particular journeys or for refund inquiries. "A
very few authorised individuals can access this data and there is no bulk disclosure of personal
data to third parties for any commercial purposes. There is no bulk disclosure of personal data
to any law enforcement agency. If information is disclosed, it is always done so in accordance
with the Data Protection Act after a case-by-case evaluation. [4].
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