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| DATE | 2023-05-12 |
| FROM | Ruben Safir
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| SUBJECT | Subject: [Hangout - NYLXS] OMNY disaster
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https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/16/21175699/mta-omny-privacy-security-smartphone-identifier-location-nyc
TRANSPO
The NYC subway’s new tap-to-pay system has a hidden cost — rider data
OMNY will collect a significant amount of information from riders,
including smartphone device identifiers and location
By Ali Winston
Mar 16, 2020, 9:00 AM EDT|0 Comments / 0 New
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New York City’s subway system, a 24/7 behemoth that logs a billion and a
half trips per year, is synonymous with archaic technology, from a
signals system that dates to the Great Depression era to rail cars in
service for more than four decades. The introduction last year of OMNY,
a $574 million new contactless payment system for city buses and
subways, bucks that trend.
However, experts say the OMNY payment scheme is rife with problems,
based on the limited information about the system made public in its
terms of service and privacy policy. The collection of significant
amounts of information from users, including smartphone device
identifiers and location, which, coupled with payment and transportation
data, could be used to map out riders’ patterns of life in minute detail
and create a privacy nightmare.
Created for the MTA by Cubic Corporation, OMNY uses near-field
communication (NFC) technology to enable tap payment at turnstiles via
debit cards, smartphone payment apps, and eventually a loadable card
such as those used by transit riders in London, Sidney, San Francisco,
and Washington, DC. Cubic has created NFC card payment systems for
transit systems in San Diego, Sydney, Vancouver, and the Bay Area in
recent years, and is also expected to debut mobile payment apps on the
Chicago Transit Authority later this year.
This replacement for the venerable MetroCard (the magnetic stripe swipe
card introduced in 1992 to replace the subway token) will supposedly
speed up bus service and entry to the subway system – and spare
countless out-of-towners the embarrassment of not knowing how to
correctly swipe in at a turnstile.
In addition to privacy concerns, there are also questions related to the
security of such data, whether OMNY could be used by the MTA to
unilaterally exclude people from New York City’s transit system, and
language in the payment system’s terms of service that indemnifies the
MTA from liability for customers being double-charged for rides.
The problems have been exacerbated by the MTA’s refusal to engage with
questions about different aspects of OMNY, even as the payment system is
being rapidly introduced throughout the city. By the end of 2020, OMNY
validators will be in every subway station and bus in the city. Early
next year, the new payment system will be introduced to the Metro North
and Long Island Rail Road commuter lines.
Fare gates at a NYC subway station.
Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge
Riders of New York City subways and buses are well accustomed to the
reality that they are being tracked on public transportation.
Surveillance cameras proliferated as anti-terrorism and crime measures
in the years after 9/11, while MetroCard data is routinely used by
police to recreate a criminal suspect’s movements.
NYPD officers and district attorney investigators have for years used
judicial subpoenas to retrieve MetroCard information stored by the MTA
to track criminal suspects. One such instance involved the murder of a
baby boy by his father, who worked as a subway cleaner. Detectives used
the man’s MTA-issued MetroCard to track his movements from Co-Op City in
the Bronx to lower Manhattan, where he allegedly threw his son’s body
into the East River.
However, the introduction of a payment system that ties a rider’s
movements not only to their bank card, but potentially their smartphone
via payment apps creates a raft of privacy and data security issues. In
OMNY’s privacy policy, the MTA states that information including, but
not limited to, payment information, billing address, and the point of
entry to the transit system will be logged in Cubic Corporation’s
servers.
Steve Brunner, Cubic’s general manager for the tri-state area, said the
firm had multiple local data centers to safeguard against losing
information in a catastrophic event. “If there is an outage or failure
of a component at one data center, it will automatically either
partially or fully roll over to the other data center,” Brunner said in
an interview with The Verge last year.
In addition, the privacy policy authorizes the MTA and Cubic to retain
the data for an indefinite period — the MTA claims that it stores
transaction information for six months, but keeps other portions of the
transaction information for up to seven years. Riders can log in to
their OMNY account and review their movement history for the 90 days
prior.
Privacy advocates say that OMNY’s retention of individual rider data
warrants greater disclosure
Privacy advocates say that OMNY’s retention of individual rider data and
smartphone device identifiers for an indeterminate period that could run
over half a decade warrants greater disclosure and public discussion.
“If you’re using OMNY on your phone – there’s no card yet – it’s not
clear to me what other information they’re taking from your phone or how
that can identify you,” said Jerome Greco, a staff attorney at the Legal
Aid Society’s digital forensics unit who specializes in surveillance
technology.
OMNY’s privacy policy also includes a carve-out for the collection of
additional information “that is not specifically listed” in the
document, allowing the transit authority broad leeway to harvest
additional data from riders. According to the MTA, such information
includes IP addresses and device numbers from phones used to pay for
rides, creating a whole new category of sensitive information that could
be used either to push advertisements toward riders or track their
movements outside of the transit system via Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, or their
device’s MAC address.
The MTA maintains that it retains all information securely with triple
DES encryption and that such data is never decrypted.
“Our transactions are encrypted from the moment you touch the
validator,” said Al Putre, the MTA’s program director for OMNY. “We keep
them in an encrypted state even when we store it in our account-based
processor. We use state of the art encryption methods and security
module hardware. We do absolutely everything we can do to maintain the
integrity of the transaction to ensure it’s secure. If we have just one
little glitch, our credibility goes out the door.”
“Our transactions are encrypted from the moment you touch the validator”
Indeed, the OMNY terms of service contain specific language that admits
riders run the risk of incursions to their privacy by using the payment
system. “Security risk is inherent in all internet and information
technologies, and we cannot guarantee the security of your Personal
Information,” the policy reads. While the MTA maintains this is standard
contractual language for information technology products, it is telling
straphangers they will be sacrificing privacy for convenience.
Cubic, the company in charge of designing and implementing the OMNY
system, has run into problems around data security before: in San
Francisco, information from its contactless payment system for the Muni
light rail system was hacked and held ransom for $73,000 in Bitcoin,
forcing the system to let riders use it for free. Last year, London’s
Oyster payment system was taken offline after a credential stuffing
spree compromised the accounts of an untold number of riders.
“We’re definitely concerned about issues on privacy and how the MTA is
using data,” said Jaqi Cohen, the campaign direction for the New York
Public Interest Research Group’s Straphangers Campaign. “Any way the MTA
is planning on using and protecting data should be known to riders and
the public – the terms of service should not be hidden from the riders
and the way the MTA plans to use these data should be made very
explicit.”
The MTA is already facing an open records lawsuit in New York regarding
its unannounced deployment of facial recognition technology in the Times
Square station last Spring. In London, where former New York City
Transit President Andy Byford drew much inspiration for his projects,
Cubic has already tested facial recognition options for payment.,The MTA
denies that facial recognition is being considered for any integration
into the OMNY payment system.
The retention of cellphone device identifiers by OMNY was singled out by
advocates as a significant matter for concern. Law enforcement makes
particular use of cellphone location data to identify and track persons
of interest. In New York City, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement
agents use cell-site simulators to track down undocumented immigrants by
their cellphones. ICE has shown an appetite for both criminal justice
and transportation data to locate deportation targets nationwide, and
recently subpoenaed New York City authorities for data on four people
slated for deportation.
“If they’re able to single out your individual phone, then can they get
more data from your phone company or iCloud backup, and those would
require warrants,” said Greco of the Legal Aid Society. However, he
pointed out that OMNY’s privacy policy does not require a warrant to
turn information over to law enforcement.
Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge
Much like how cashless payments have come under fire for discriminating
against people without bank accounts or mobile payment apps or debit
cards, OMNY’s implementation is running into questions over access and
equity. Last summer, in the early stages of the new payment system’s
rollout, riders who pay with a MasterCard debit were reimbursed $5.50
every Friday. In other transit systems run by Cubic, customers can earn
fare discounts by watching ads on their cellphone.
At a moment when the MTA and Governor Andrew Cuomo are taking a hard
line with fare evasion, the idea that OMNY’s promotions are effectively
subsidizing wealthier riders’ trips has proven galling for some.
“We’re creating a system where wealthy riders pay less while Cuomo is
deploying an army to crack down on black and brown riders,” said Albert
Fox Cahn, the director of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project,
which issued a critical report on OMNY last year and filed the open
records suit over the MTA’s use of facial recognition.
Transit advocates say many low-income riders often pay more per ride
because they cannot afford to purchase the weekly or monthly passes that
cost riders less money per rides. The MTA has said it will continue
providing discounted rides for students and seniors, as well as the
discounted weekly and monthly cards, in the coming months.
With regard to fares, the MTA has also included language in its terms of
service that indemnify the transit agency for accidental double
payments, several of which have recently taken place when riders swiped
in to the subway system with a MetroCard, only for their cellphone’s
Apple Pay app to accidentally deduct a $2.75 ride from their account
after coming into contact with the display.
The relevant passage from OMNY’s terms of service essentially blames
riders for failing to properly use their devices, and states that the
“MTA is not responsible if your fare is charged to a card or through a
smart device that you did not intend to use.” The MTA maintains such
language is necessary to indemnify the transit authority against fraud,
the faulty double payment was caused by Apple’s unannounced update last
November to the Express Transit mode payment option, and it has fully
refunded fares for all the roughly 500 instances of double payment.
However, transit advocates are not satisfied with the response.
“It’s particularly outrageous that there’s explicit language in the
Terms of Service saying that if you don’t pay, it’s your fault, while
the MTA is claiming fare evasion is a huge issue and using it to hire
500 new cops,” said Cohen from NYPIRG’s Straphangers’ Campaign. “How
much [money] has been collected in error?”
“How much [money] has been collected in error?”
Aside from concerns over surveillance and functionality, OMNY’s terms of
service also hint that the MTA is looking to use the tap payment system
as a new method to unilaterally exclude people from city subway
stations, buses, and commuter railways.
Access to the transit system, according to OMNY’s terms of service, can
be blocked for “suspicion of other illegal activity, in MTA’s sole
discretion.” What’s more, the MTA claims the right to suspend access to
OMNY “if you engage in activity that we conclude, in our sole and
absolute discretion, breach our code of conduct.” Behaviors deemed
illegal by the MTA in recent years include putting your feet up on a
seat, sleeping on the train, or passing between subway cars.
In response to queries by The Verge, the MTA’s Putre said the terms of
service language would be amended to remove prohibitions on people
accessing the transit system.
“The purpose of OMNY is to provide our customers with an easy and
convenient way to pay the fare and we are committed to protecting NYC
Transit riders’ privacy and preventing fraud,” Putre said in a
statement. “For clarity and effective immediately, the OMNY Terms of
Service have been amended to remove references to actions that might
summarily prohibit access to OMNY services — a provision that has never
been used. The Terms, as they did previously, will continue to protect
customers from fraudulent use of their accounts by allowing interruption
of OMNY charges in that situation.”
“the OMNY Terms of Service have been amended to remove references to
actions that might summarily prohibit access to OMNY services”
“By putting your feet up or falling asleep, you could get your OMNY
account suspended,” said Cohen. “That’s why the MTA needs to be
transparent and explain to the public how this will work.”
“Public transit is public space, it’s part of the public sphere. The
idea of banning anyone from public transit raises prominent
constitutional issues for us,” said Daniel Pearlstein, the policy and
communications director for the New York Riders Alliance, a transit
advocacy organization.
Pearlstein said that the possibility of the MTA issuing unilateral bans
to individuals for perceived offenses outside the criminal justice
systems could amount to a de facto form of segregation.
“We are skeptics around the MTA’s narrative on fare evasion. Their
rhetoric is about blaming low income riders of color for the ills of a
transit system that are overwhelmingly the fault of powerful people
going back a generation.”
To date, individual exclusion from public transit is not something that
has taken place outside of specific criminal cases. NYPD Commissioner
Dermot Shea has pushed legislators in Albany to pass a law banning
repeat sex offenders from using city subways. However, the MTA’s
codification of unilateral authority to ban people for incidents that
may not even rise to the level of criminality may also run into problems
around due process.
“Here, they’re just talking about suspicion. They’re not talking about
people who’ve been convicted: this is suspicion by the MTA. The MTA
becomes the judge, jury and executioner,” said Greco of the Legal Aid
Society.
“It seems to be even more egregious if it is in the MTA’s sole
discretion. How do I appeal that? How do they make that determination?
Who makes that determination? What standards are they using? Is this
going to become like the no-fly list?”
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