NYC Subway Pass System Disables Privacy-Compromising Feature

In the report NYC Subway Pass System Disables Privacy resulting in compromising the privacy of the visitors. The underground pass system in New York has disabled a function that may allow others to follow your journeys if they have access to your bank card data. Metropolitan Transportation Authority spokeswoman Eugene Resnick told The Verge that the agency “disabled the feature” as part of its “ongoing commitment to customer privacy.”

The MTA’s OMNY system is a contactless underground pass alternative that allows you to pay for a fare at a station by tapping your phone or bank card. However, according to a report published on Wednesday by 404 Media, anyone with your card number and expiration date can access your journeys from the previous seven days via OMNY’s “trip history” feature.

“This feature was meant to help our customers who want access to their tap-and-go trip histories, both paid and free, without having to create an OMNY account,” Resnick tells The Verge. “As part of the MTA’s ongoing commitment to customer privacy, we have disabled this feature while we evaluate other ways to serve these customers.” The page that enabled easy tracking is now simply a redirect to the OMNY homepage.

Because of OMNY’s vulnerability, there are considerable fears that stalkers or other criminal actors could use this function to monitor victims. The MTA was chastised by the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project (STOP) for its oversight. “We warned that law enforcement could easily turn OMNY into a tracking device that logs every rider’s movements,” said Will Owen, STOP communications director. “However, the ‘Check Trip History’ feature demonstrates how vulnerable OMNY data is to stalkers, abusers, and anyone with a quick glance at your credit card information.”

In addition to the OMNY system, the New York City subway system is under fire from STOP and other privacy groups for using AI monitoring capabilities to catch fare evaders.

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