UK Train Operators Plan To Charge Passengers Using Their Biometrics

from the all-aboard-for-the-surveillance-state dept

Despite repeated warnings from security experts about their problems, biometrics are gaining in popularity for all kinds of applications, many of them inappropriate. Here's another group that is so enamored of the technology it seems it hasn't thought things through:

Rail passengers could be charged for journeys by fingerprint or iris scans, according to the industry's plan for coping with growing demand.

Biometric technology would enable fares to be automatically charged, the Rail Delivery Group (RDG) said.

As the Guardian article explains, the RDG is the main organization representing the UK railway industry. It sees the move to biometrics as a continuation of current experiments:

[RDG] claimed such a system could follow on from the use of smartphones' Bluetooth signals to open station barriers, which will be trialled on Chiltern Railways' route between London Marylebone and Oxford Parkway over the coming months.

At least Bluetooth signals have the virtue of operating quite quickly, and from a certain distance. It's hard to see how fingerprints or iris scans will be so slick in practice. As we've noted before, there are serious problems with getting fingerprint scans for the general public to work on a large scale, and those difficulties are likely to be exacerbated when people are in a hurry to catch a train.

Iris scans typically require the subject to stand on a certain spot and to keep still while their eye is checked. As anyone who has been through some airports around the world knows, iris scans often take several attempts to recognize someone, and may fail altogether, which requires a manual check elsewhere. In the context of a busy station, this seems a recipe for disaster.

But there's a possible solution to these problems. Instead of using the rather unreliable fingerprints or iris scans, why not move on to facial recognition? Unlike the other forms of biometrics, facial recognition systems seem to be getting better all the time. It can't be long before the rail operators suggest that deploying this technology in stations would be a great way to allow people to pay without needing to buy physical tickets or even stop as they head off for their train.

But that would effectively create a huge surveillance database of everyone moving through the rail system -- including those who prefer to travel using anonymous means like cash. And once that database existed, it would only be a matter of time before the authorities point out that it would be ridiculous not to use this valuable information in order to capture bad people who might harm society. As it happens, it was revealed last week that the UK government is already using that argument to access confidential records held on a national health database in order to track down "immigration offenders."

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Filed Under: biometrics, privacy, trains, uk

DailyDirt: Trains, Trains, Trains. I've Got a Thing About Trains...

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Trains are an often over-looked form of transportation in the US. But trains are actually one of the most fuel-efficient ways to travel -- able to move a ton of freight over 400 miles on just one gallon of fuel. Here are just a few quick links on some cool train projects.

• German trains will be powered by renewable energy (and no cheating by using nuclear power...!) by 2050. "That’s not just a declaration of intent. It’s a concrete business target." [url]
• This video demonstrates the 'Moving Platforms' concept -- which lets train riders get on/off a moving train via a small transfer train. Prior art from the movies: riding up on a horse and jumping onto a moving train. [url]
• Russia is seriously thinking about building an underground rail line between Siberia and Alaska. If completed, this $65 billion project would create the longest underwater tunnel in the world. [url]
• To discover other interesting transportation-related content, check out what's currently floating around the StumbleUpon universe. [url]  

By the way, StumbleUpon can recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

Filed Under: alaska, moving platforms, renewable energy, russia, trains

NY MTA Realizing That Having People Create Apps For You Isn't Such A Bad Thing

from the about-time dept

Like many other transit authorities, NY's MTA took a ridiculous stance that it owned train scheduling time, and threatened independent developers, demanding large licensing fees for creating iPhone or web apps. This has never made any sense to me. Even if those transit authorities have licensed the data in the past, you can't copyright facts and (much more importantly) the goal of any transit authority should be to get more people comfortable with using public transit -- and if an independent developer is willing to create a useful app that does that for free, it should be celebrated, not met with a cease-and-desist. It looks like some at the MTA are finally realizing this, as they're backing off some of their earlier threats, and letting some apps move forward (thanks ADM for sending in the link). They don't have an official policy on this yet, but do admit that it makes sense to "evolve" to keep up with what people are doing. Later in the article, they basically admit they never really thought about this, and the whole idea that someone else might make an app for them seemed foreign, and thus, they reacted poorly to it. Either way, it's good to see them come around to realizing that opening up data makes a lot of sense.

Filed Under: copyright, data, facts, public transportation, trains
Companies: mta

Boston Public Transit Does It Right: Opens Scheduling Data

from the nice-move dept

We were just talking about how NY's public transit authority, the MTA was following in the footsteps of other short-sighted transit groups, by claiming ownership of scheduling data, and trying to squeeze license fees for anyone who uses it. Instead, if they were smart, they'd recognize that their money is made by making it easier and more convenient for people to take public transportation. It appears there are at least a few public transit authorities that recognize this. Rosedale points out that up in Boston, the MBTA is actually taking an open approach to its data. They're opening up all of the data and allowing developers to create their own apps:

"Our priority is to consistently improve customer service for the riders who rely on the T and RTAs everyday to get to their job or their doctor's appointment on time," said Transportation Secretary Aloisi. "With the help of thoughtful technical developers, making this data public will spawn many possible applications to help transit users use their cell phones or laptops to find and use the right bus or train in the right place at the right time for them."

Nice to see at least a few out there who have figured this out.

Filed Under: boston, copyright, data, facts, openness, public transportation, schedule, trains
Companies: mbta

Train Operators Around The World Stopping Others From Helping Riders... Due To Intellectual Property

from the how-dare-you-help-people!! dept

What is it about folks who operate train lines that make them so confused when it comes to intellectual property? They seem to be focused on harming their own businesses in an effort to "protect" intellectual property. If enforcing your intellectual property makes you worse off, then why are you enforcing it? Just today, we received two separate stories of incredibly backwards thinking from those who operate train-lines -- which makes you really wonder why some people get so focused on protecting intellectual property that they lose sight of the fact that it's harming their business.

We've already talked about those who run trains in Germany and Australia cracking down on people creating their own iPhone train schedule apps, claiming they violated intellectual property rights of the train operators. This makes very little sense for a variety of reasons. First, it is still quite ridiculous that any sort of factual information can be covered by copyright -- but in Europe such "collections" of information can be covered by the database copyrights -- the idea that if you put factual information into a "database" that database then deserves copyright protection. Europe has this, while the US does not -- and studies have shown that contrary to what copyright supports insist, this increased right has actually hindered the database industry in Europe... but that hasn't made the law go away.

But, of course, even more idiotic than just the question of copyrighting facts, is the simple point that these apps make it easier for people to ride the trains, which should be exactly what the train operators are encouraging. Thanks to the mantra of certain copyright supporters that "free is bad," some folks seem unable to think out more than a single step. The fact is, that if people can make a great train schedule app that makes it easier to take the train, then that means more people will take the train, which is where the real money is for train operators. But, of course, the folks who only see one step out, think "wait, we should be making money on that data!" even if it means fewer people take the train, and the net benefit is less.

The latest to make that decision is the UK's National Rail Enquiries, who forced the creators of the MyRail Lite app to shut down (thanks to Donald for sending this in). MyRail Lite was a free iPhone app. NRE is offering its own app... for £4.99. So in the short-term rush to try to score a bit of money from a small group of people, NRE is making the overall rail system a lot more complex for the majority of people. Short-term thinking at its finest.

Unfortunately, the author of the article, Rory Cellan-Jones, starts out by agreeing that this is dumb, but then seems to change his mind, after reading the silly James DeLong article about newspapers where he (in typical DeLong fashion) insists that the use of "free" is what destroyed newspapers. The arguments are easy to debunk, but Cellan-Jones seems to have fallen for them. But it's easy to see how wrong it is in this case: the business NRE is transportation. If it gets people from point A to point B more efficiently, it will be able to make more money charging for that service. A free app that makes the process more efficient helps the bottom line. Trying to scrape up a bit of extra cash at the front end, while making the process more inefficient for more people is incredibly short-sighted.

But, that isn't the most ridiculous story we heard today about trains and intellectual property. Lucretious sends in the news that a group of four very nice women in New York City who have been voluntarily working to make public transportation in NYC more pleasant have been ordered to stop by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. The women have set up a website, MTAService.org where they provide information on how to make your public transit in NY better. It's run by four women, who also ride the subways regularly (wearing their own made up uniforms) trying to help provide better service -- helping people find where they need to go, or helping mothers with strollers, for example.

But, of course, the MTA has sent them a cease-and-desist, demanding they pull down the information. You can see the trademark worries -- even though the website clearly states that the MTA Service Specialists (as they call themselves) are in no way affiliated with the MTA (they note "unfortunately.") But, rather than the MTA doing the smart thing, and seeing if they can actually associate themselves with these helpful women, the MTA just wants to shut them down. This is short-term thinking again. Sure, there almost certainly is a valid trademark claim here -- but if someone actually took the time to sit back and look at the facts of the situation, they would realize that a better response would be to see if they could sign these women up officially to help improve service on the subway. As the women note, they're just trying to improve the MTA's service, without costing the city any money at all.

Once again... we see how this aggressive believe in "we must protect our IP!" is actually being used to hinder service improvements, rather than help them.

Filed Under: intellectual property, new york, trains, uk
Companies: mta, national rail enquiries

A History Lesson For Those Advocating Network Neutrality Laws

from the unintended-consequences dept

Over at News.com, Declan McCullagh writes that Barack Obama's election as the next president of the United States has bolstered the hopes of those hoping to impose network neutrality regulations on the Internet. While Obama's key advisors have been cagey about precisely what the new administration's stance on the issue will be, it's a safe bet that we'll be hearing a lot about the issue in the coming months. This seems like a good time for a long-overdue conclusion to my ongoing series on network neutrality regulation.

One of the things that has been missing from the network neutrality debate has been a sense of how it fits into the broader history of government regulations of network industries. It's easy to imagine that the Internet is so new and different that historical comparisons just aren't relevant. But as we've seen with copyright and patent debates, we can learn a lot from historical experiences that may not seem immediately relevant.

I think this is equally true in the network neutrality debate. While the specifics of network neutrality are unlike anything that has come before, the general principles involved—non-discrimination, competition, monopoly power, and so forth—have actually been with us for more than a century. Indeed, today's network neutrality debate bears a striking resemblance to the debate that led to the very first American regulatory agency: the Interstate Commerce Commission, which was created to regulate the railroad industry.

The railroad industry was the high-tech industry of its day, and it had many of the same kinds of transformative effects on the 19th Century American economy that the Internet is having today. As with today's Internet, some parts of the railroad market were highly competitive, while other markets were served by only one or two firms. And people had concerns about the behavior of the largest railroad firms that echoed those that people have about large Internet providers today: that they restrict competition, discriminate among customers.

In 1887, Congress passed legislation (you can read an abridged version here) that is strikingly similar to the proposed network neutrality legislation that we're debating today. The Interstate Commerce Act declared it illegal to charge different prices to different customers for "the transportation of a like kind of traffic under substantially similar circumstances and conditions." It also said that railroads may not "make or give any undue or unreasonable preference or advantage to any particular person, company, firm, corporation, or locality, or any particular description of traffic." Compare that to the leading network neutrality proposal during the last Congress, which would have required network providers to deliver content on a "reasonable and nondiscriminatory" basis without imposing "a charge on the basis of the type of content, applications, or services made available."

Unfortunately, the story of the Interstate Commerce Commission does not have a happy ending. Grover Cleveland appointed a railroad ally named Thomas M Cooley as the first chairman of the ICC. The ICC was widely regarded as toothless for its first couple of decades, largely rubber-stamping railroad industry decisions. Things got even worse after the turn of the century, when the ICC began actively discouraging competition in the railroad industry. The ICC had the power to decide when new firms were allowed to enter the railroad industry, and by the 1920s, the FCC was actively working to discourage competition and push up railroad rates. In the 1930s, the ICC gained authority over the infant trucking industry, and used its authority to slow the growth of the trucking industry to protect the railroads from competition. By 1970, things had gotten so bad that a Ralph Nader report described the ICC as "predominantly a forum at which transportation interests divide up the national transportation market."

What went wrong? The story is too long and complicated to fully describe in a blog post, but I think there are two key lessons. First, the authors of the ICA dramatically underestimated the complexity of the railroad industry and the difficulty of government oversight. One of the reasons the ICC was relatively toothless in its early years is that it was completely overwhelmed with paperwork, as dozens of railroads sent it information about thousands of routes. The railroad industry was simply too complex and dynamic for a few Washington bureaucrats to even understand, to say nothing of regulating them effectively.

Second, the ICC's failure is a classic example of what economists call "regulatory capture": the ability of special interests to gain control of the regulatory process and use it to their advantage. Because the railroads cared more about railroad regulation than anyone else, they were adept at getting their allies appointed to key positions at the commission. Over time, the ICC not only ceased to be an effective watchdog of consumer interests, but actually began actively defending the interests of the railroads at consumers' expense. For about six decades—from about 1920 to 1980—the ICC pursued policies that reduced competition and raised prices in the railroad industry. And when trucking emerged as a potentially disruptive innovation, the ICC helped to limit its growth and slow the corresponding decline of the railroad industry.

The story of the ICC is not an isolated case. Similar stories can be told of the Civil Aeronautics board, which limited competition in the airline industry until the 1970s. And, of course, there's the example of that the FCC actively promoted AT&T's monopoly in the telecommunications market until it was broken up in 1984.

We can certainly hope that Congress has learned from the experiences of the 20th century and will avoid the most egregious mistakes it made in the 20th century. But it's worth remembering that many of the conditions that led to the ICC's problems are still with us. Today's FCC, like the ICC of the 20th Century, has a revolving door between the commission and the firms they regulate. And the Internet, like the railroad industry of the 19th century, is extraordinarily dynamic and complex. As a result, there's a real danger that if Congress gives the FCC the power to regulate the Internet, it will make things worse, either because it cannot keep up with the Internet's rapid evolution, or because industry incumbents will succeed in getting their own allies in key positions within the commission. Either way, the results could be very different from what network neutrality proponents are hoping for.

Filed Under: history, net neutrality, regulations, regulatory capture, trains, unintended consequences

Forget Driving While Texting, Now There's Train Conducting While Texting...

from the im-nt-pying-attntn dept

As you probably heard, Friday afternoon there was a tragic train crash in California, killing a bunch of people. There were some rumors going around over the weekend, and now the press is picking up on a report that the engineer of the Metrolink train that missed a signal leading to the crash may have been text-messaging with someone moments before the accident. It's the type of story that the press loves, though there's not that much evidence other than the claims of the kid on the other end of the text messages. Just as politicians are now pushing through "driving-while-texting" bans, you have to imagine that this will also help push along those initiatives. But, once again, the same issue comes through. The problem isn't text messaging: it's people in control over big, powerful machines (cars or trains) not paying attention the way they're supposed to be paying attention.

Filed Under: collision, driving, texting, trains

Driver Blames GPS For Driving On Railroad Tracks, Getting Hit By Train

from the common-sense? dept

What is it about turning on a GPS system that makes people lose just about any bit of common sense they may have had? Last year, we wrote about a woman who blamed her GPS device for getting her into a train accident. You see, the GPS device told her to go straight, even though there was a gate blocking the train tracks. Now we've got a similar case. As pointed out by the folks over at the Tech Liberation Front, a California man who was in New York for work, and driving a rental car, apparently turned onto the railroad tracks for the MetroNorth line because his GPS told him to turn. To his credit, the guy eventually realized that maybe the tracks weren't where he was supposed to turn, but he was unable to get his rental Ford Focus to reverse back down the tracks. At that point he "abandoned" the car, leaving it for the next train to hit. At least the MetroNorth spokesperson seems to have a sense of humor about the whole thing. When talking about how the guy tried to warn the oncoming train, he deadpanned: "He tried to stop the train by waving his arms, which apparently was not totally effective in slowing the train." Not totally effective indeed. When noting that the driver worked in the computer field, the spokesman also noted: "One computer brain listening to another." Time to reprogram some of the logic, however.

Filed Under: driving directions, gps, trains