Presto! Your privacy is gone

Metrolinx needs to be more transparent with its customers when it comes to sharing the information it gathers from trips on the transit system.

As Star transportation reporter Ben Spurr revealed in an exclusive story, Metrolinx, the provincial transit agency that operates the Presto fare card system used across the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area (and in Ottawa), has been sharing data gathered from Presto cards with police.

In fact, of 26 requests made this year, Metrolinx gave police the information asked for 12 times.

This is disconcerting in part because Metrolinx did not always ask to see a warrant or court order before turning over the travel information.

But most importantly, Metrolinx didn’t inform the users, who are paying customers, that by using this new convenient transit card they were leaving a data trail that could potentially be used to monitor them.

Metrolinx shared usage records, which show where and when a customer tapped their card to pay the fare on their transit trip — be it getting on a bus or entering a subway turnstile.

While sharing this information is not against the law and may not appear to be a big deal to some, it is an invasion of privacy that many users won’t have realized they were submitting to.

That Metrolinx failed to apprise users of its privacy policies is a betrayal of the public trust.

Of course, everything done online can be tracked and collected and people need to understand that their personal business can be shared too — sometimes by companies to make money, other times by law enforcement to track people. But for a public entity such as Metrolinx, caveat emptor isn’t good enough.

The Presto card program is still small. There are 2.54 million accredited card holders and just 12 per cent of the TTC’s 1.8 million daily riders are participating.

The program has already seen a series of failures as Metrolinx seeks to expand it into a seamless transit payment system without fare collectors. Out-of-service fare gates and outages on card readers and self-serve reload machines have frustrated card-holders. Yet Metrolinx expects a surge in uptake over the next year as it phases out traditional tokens and tickets.

But if the new system is to succeed, establishing the public’s trust will be essential.

Now is the time for Metrolinx to be upfront and accountable to users about the information it collects from them and how and when it could be shared with third parties, such as the police. Now is the time for it to assure riders that it will start requiring police to present a court order before handing over information related to a criminal investigation.

Public transportation is becoming ever more important as our cities densify and expand. As a growing number of riders adopt the Presto system, they should not be left to wonder whether this system of payment might be doubling as a system of surveillance — one that allows police to go fishing for information or to subvert due process.

It’s time for Metrolinx to tighten up its privacy policy and make it public.

Now is the time for Metrolinx to be upfront and accountable to users about the information it collects from them