I grew up in Arizona, a state where toll roads don\u2019t exist.\u00a0 When we moved to Washington, DC in 2011, paying tolls was one of my least favorite parts about traveling throughout the East Coast (don\u2019t taxes pay for roads?).\u00a0 Thankfully, we quickly discovered a way to ease the constant pain of traveling on toll roads: the EZ Pass.\u00a0 It\u2019s convenient, I don\u2019t have to stop at toll plazas, and now instead of having to keep a careful eye on my coin supply, I can earn 2X Chase points every time my credit card is charged to replenish my EZ Pass account.<\/p>\n
At toll plazas that use the EZ Pass system, antennas emit a Radio Frequency field that activates the EZ Pass transponders of cars approaching the toll plaza.\u00a0 The EZ Pass transponder broadcasts a signal back to the antenna that contains information about the account the transponder is linked to.\u00a0 This account information is sent to a central database, and if the account is in good standing, meaning the account has a non-zero balance or has a credit card linked to it, the driver gets a green light and can proceed.\u00a0 Austrian company Kapsch TrafficCom AG is the main developer and supplier of this technology.<\/p>\n
This technology has eliminated the terrible inconvenience of having to stop and hunt for coins or dollar bills every time you need to pay a toll, and contributes to faster trips for those who use the EZ Pass.\u00a0 In addition, the use of automated toll payment technology like the EZ Pass system contributes to reduced emissions, as cars no longer need to idle and stop while waiting for their turn to pay their toll.\u00a0 However, the potential exists for this technology and the data it generates to be used in intrusive and unsettling ways, and unfortunately, there are several instances of this occurring (1).<\/p>\n
In 2013, a New Jersey resident built a simple device (using a breadboard from the Shad plant!) to detect every time his EZ Pass transponder was activated, and drove around New York City.\u00a0 In the stretch between Times Square and Madison Square Garden, a stretch of city streets with no tolls, his EZ Pass transponder was read 6 times!\u00a0 Upon investigation of NYC\u2019s use of EZ Pass readers for purposes other than toll collection, it was discovered that NYC feeds this data to its traffic management center to provide real-time traffic information, to improve traffic flow.\u00a0 NYC stated that transponder information is scrambled and not kept permanently in any system.<\/p>\n
I hate traffic more than I hate tolls, so the prospect of being able to use data to reduce traffic is very appealing to me. \u00a0The problem here, though, is that nowhere in the terms and conditions (2) for EZ Pass is it stated that transponders will be read at locations other than toll plazas.\u00a0 At a minimum, governments that intend to read EZ Pass transponders for purposes other than toll collection should be transparent about it, and should ensure that adequate privacy policies are in place to ensure that users of EZ Pass transponders are aware of how their transponders may be read, and to ensure that any data obtained is anonymous and protected (3).<\/p>\n
You might be thinking, why should I care so much about how my EZ Pass data is used?\u00a0 Well, an example from the great state of New Jersey will shed some light on that for us.\u00a0 In 2013, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, and Deputy Chief of the NJ Port Authority Bill Baroni both used NJ Senator Frank Lautenberg\u2019s EZ Pass records to add to their arguments against increases in tolls that the Senator supported (4).\u00a0 Additionally, Governor Christie called into question the Senator\u2019s dedication to New Jersey, based on the average of 3-4 weekly trips to New York that Gov. Christie observed in the Senator\u2019s EZ Pass records.<\/p>\n
The bottom line is that insufficient effort has been dedicated to ensuring that the use of the EZ Pass technology and the vast amounts of data that go along with it will remain safe, and that customers\u2019 privacy and best interests will always be protected.\u00a0 If boundaries aren\u2019t set in place, it will be too easy for customers\u2019 rights to erode.\u00a0 For example, what\u2019s preventing states from deciding to use EZ Pass readers to calculate customers\u2019 speeds, and issue them speeding tickets? \u00a0Companies like Kapsch Traficcom AG that supply the technology and data management systems that make the EZ Pass system work need to be conscious of how their technology may be used, and pledge to not provide their technology to any agency that does not have robust safeguards in place to protect against the misuse of data.<\/p>\n
Total Words: \u00a0782<\/p>\n
Sources:<\/p>\n
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Is toll collection the only thing EZ Pass transponders are being used for? Surprisingly, the answer is no, and if that sounds unsettling, it should.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2167,"featured_media":20178,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","categories":[60,1355,2483,2312,2222],"class_list":["post-19981","hck-submission","type-hck-submission","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-data","category-ethics","category-policy","category-privacy","category-tolls"],"connected_submission_link":"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-rctom\/assignment\/digitization-challenge-2016\/","yoast_head":"\n