In 2013 JR East faced a crisis over selling Suica ridership pattern data analysis to Hitachi. The Suica data was stripped of personal information and was used to analyze popular transit routes and create general user profiles based on age group, gender and so on. Media outcry resulted in JR East drafting an opt out data policy followed by Japanese Government laws and regulations covering personal data privacy.

That was then, this is now. Line, the popular messaging service plus Line Pay payment platform, came under attack this week for storing user and transaction record data outside of Japan, in South Korea and China. This is not a surprise since Line started in South Korea and storing data on cloud servers there was always an open secret. Why the brouhaha now? The recent complicated Z Holdings acquisition maneuvers of Line are a factor. With PayPay and Line Pay QR payment empires now in the same house some kind of streamlining is bound to happen. The data scandal could be a convenient excuse to start it.

The constant drip of privacy concerns regarding social networks and QR payment systems like Line Pay, and where user transaction data is stored, makes the old JR East crisis look small and silly. Everything is more connected now in unexpected ways than even just 8 years ago.

It doesn’t matter how secure transaction protocols are when user transaction record data is stored on leaky servers or sold to outsiders for profit. I wrote about this earlier, the so called popularity of QR Code payment services in Japan is really about big data. In that vein we have a timely blog post on Open Loop ltransit rider privacy from Transit Center.

For a professional advocacy organization dedicated ‘to improve public transit,’ the Transit Center privacy publication is surprisingly amateurish. It raises valid concerns but reads like open loop advertising from credit card companies (Transit Center soft sponsors?), where open loop is the golden cure-all future, and the only future at that, of every transit ill with closed loop invariably portrayed as a dead era of tokens, punchcards and mag strip swipe cards. They also make MTA seem like the only transit system in America that matters because idiosyncratic MTA problems apply everywhere. Right? Wrong. Let’s take a look at their privacy blog post…<<with comments>>.

Transit agencies around the country are adopting a new generation of fare payment systems. Agencies including New York’s MTA, Boston’s MBTA, and Houston METRO are in the process of switching to what’s known as “open-loop” systems that enable riders to tap into the system using digital wallets on their phones or with their credit cards…

<<more banks handling transit fare concessions sounds like a good idea for privacy, wait until the TC folks figure out that ‘closed loop’ bank card accounts for digital wallet OMNY is the next step in the game>>

These technologies come with clear benefits for riders, but they also carry the risk of exposing more personal data…

<<here it comes>>

The switch to these new fare payment technologies can accelerate access to riders’ trip data by other government agencies. In New York, for instance, individuals’ MTA trip data can be retrieved much faster with the new OMNY system than with the older MetroCard system…

<<retrieve trip data quickly on a fare system where users don’t tap out…what? privacy concerns are not just government agencies btw with multiple 3rd party companies handling and processing transit fare data…which brings us to>>

The increased involvement of third parties in fare payment underscores the need for better data collection and management policies within transit agencies.

<<better as in more big data details?>>

How to Implement the Next Generation of Fare Payment Without Shredding Riders’ Privacy

Anybody experienced in dealing with bank and card company customer service could see this coming. Bank and transit operating cultures are different and they don’t mix well with outside companies running the transit gate fare concession. If you think transit privacy is a concern now, wait until face recognition transit gates become the next transit future thing.

Let’s make this simple. Open Loop (EMV and QR) and bank card EMV Closed Loop means that banks and outside payment platforms run their services at the fare gates They have transit user data, as does the transit company, so does the fare system management subcontractor like Cubic. The more places data is stored the more it’s gonna leak. This is exactly what is playing out in Japan right now because Line Pay Japan user transaction data is stored in South Korea which does not, putting it mildly, have a good secure data reputation.

That doesn’t mean that closed loop is automatically more secure, but keeping data in-house with its own closed loop transaction card in the country of origin, as JR East does for Mobile Suica, does mean that outside company access is tightly controlled. At the very least there is only one company in the country of origin to take the blame when something leaks, and only one place to plug it.

UPDATE 2022-1-20
After the 2013 brouhaha, JR East is trying again with Suica Big Data and Station Karute profiles that measure the ‘health’ of station use and transit patterns. It looks tame compared QR Code payments apps that want every personal data detail that your smartphone coughs up. JR East will offer user data to outside companies that has been stripped of personal details. It’s something that they have to do to keep the Suica Platform relevant and competitive. Otherwise open loop advocates will have another marketing reason to push their agenda. Suica users concerned about privacy can opt out via the JR East web page.

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