On Jan 12, 11:29*am, (Neil Williams)
wrote:
On Fri, 11 Jan 2008 16:37:20 -0800 (PST), MIG

wrote:
If so, that means that anyone who declines to have all his/her
movements tracked will no longer be able to get anything longer than a
weekly and will have to pay more, as on LU already. *You can't have a
monthly unless your card is registered.

AIUI you can't have a monthly season ticket of any kind without giving
your details in. *The purpose of this is to allow the issue of
replacements[1], mind, not to track particular tickets.

[1] Got my first ever replacement season yesterday after my old one
got drenched in the downpour and refused to open any barriers after
that...


This is true, but that exists on paper at the ticket office where you
bought it.

That means that IF you are arrested on suspicion of a crime, the
police could link the ticket in your pocket to the details held at the
station where you bought it and to any record that exists of it
passing through barriers. This would require a positive effort and
would depend on you being picked up with the ticket in your
possession.

With smartcards, your movements (and purchases in future) are being
recorded passively and stored in a database. At any time, any
authority could choose to identify all individuals with a pattern of
behaviour deemed to be of interest to them.

That's dramatically different.