Your smartphone will play a role when checking in and out on the train. But do we want this OV-chipkaart alternative that fairly accurately measures where you are?
Goodbye old train tickets and hello OV chip card. We can say that the vast majority of the Netherlands now only travels with the OV chip card in your pocket. Check in and out at any station and the balance is automatically debited. Ideal!
Check in and out
However, checking in and out with your OV chip card is not always flawless. Sometimes you forget and especially if you transfer to another carrier (NS to Arriva for example) you have to check out and then check in again immediately. Not a disaster, but it should be easier. A trial is starting to show that this is the case, where your smartphone serves as an OV chip card.
Smartphone as public transport chip card
It’s simple: instead of checking in, your smartphone measures where you have turned on the route. At the end you turn off the route again. During that time, it is calculated how long you have traveled where and the correct amount is debited from your balance. Child can do the laundry and the problem of the multiple carriers is solved. The trial started today and it sounds promising. Just roll it out?
To care
Not yet. Because there are some snags in this OV chip card alternative with your smartphone. Most worrisome is the fact that your location has to be shared with GPS. Handy, but with it the NS can find out where the travelers are at any time. Ideal for the trial, but then the privacy issue comes to the fore immediately.
According to Translink, the current operator of the OV chip card (which will also manage the smartphone app), the system meets the GDPR requirements. He says that of the available GPS data, only what is needed for the payment is used. The system will also not be a replacement for the OV chip card, but an alternative.
Infringement
Nevertheless, a professor of ICT at Radboud University, Frederik Zuiderveen Borgesius, may find it a bit too sensitive. If you keep it as a free choice, there is no official fiddling with the AVG, it is simply arranged. He is more concerned with practical matters. “Gps signals can be accurate to within a few meters. In theory, they can also see that you have been to the toilet at Utrecht Central Station and how long you have been sitting there. Or at which fast food restaurant you get food at the station and how often.” says the professor to Nu.nl† Civil rights organization Bits for Freedom also questions a very practical side of the app. “Where the tracking at an OV chip card stops when you check out, in this test it continues until you close the app. If people already forget to check out with a public transport card, isn’t the chance of forgetting greater with an app?”
The test should therefore expose a few things. Perhaps the smartphone can be a good alternative to the OV chip card if it is given some more thought.
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