Bonum Certa Men Certa

GoTransit forces PRESTOCARD on transit commuters

Presto is WATCHING YOU

On June 1st 2012, Go Transit in the Greater Toronto Area started to phase out anonymous 2 ride and 10 ride paper based tickets. These 2 ride and 10 ride tickets would get stamped in a machine and it didn’t require giving Metrolinx your name and address or other personal information. You can still buy anonymous single ride and day passes but if you ride the bus every day this is a huge inconvenience and the price is higher. If you ride the bus every day you’re likely to opt-in to the PRESTOCARD system. The PRESTOCARD system is dangerous to your personal privacy because € it collects personal information that was never previously required to ride the bus. Personal information collected by the Government of Ontario is stored on computers running Microsoft Windows Server and is a blatant security risk.
Personal Information

Personal information that may be collected by PRESTO in connection with your use of the PRESTOCARD is recorded information that identifies individuals and may include:

a)€ € € € €  information relating to financial transactions in which you have been involved or will be involved with PRESTO, including your credit card number and your bank account information;

b)€ € € € €  any identifying number, symbol or other particular identifier assigned to you by PRESTO;

c)€ € € € € €  your address or telephone number;

d)€ € € € €  correspondence sent to PRESTO by you that is implicitly or explicitly of a private or confidential nature, and replies to that correspondence that would reveal the contents of the original correspondence; and/or

e)€ € € € €  your name where it appears with other personal information relating to you or where the disclosure of your name would reveal other personal information about you.

https://www.prestocard.ca/en/StaticContent/Privacy/
The claim from Metrolinx (whom owns Go Transit and Metrolinx) is that the information will only be used for a list of purposes although it says ‘among other things’ meaning the list is not complete:
PRESTO’s primary purpose for collecting your personal information is to provide the services and/or products requested by you. In addition, you agree that your personal information may be used, among other things, to:

a)€ € € € €  open and set-up your PRESTO Account;

b)€ € € € €  verify your identity and/or your eligibility for certain PRESTO Services;

c)€ € € € € €  mail to you your PRESTOCARD and other such items or communications;

d)€ € € € €  operate the PRESTO Services effectively;

e)€ € € € €  administer loyalty programs associated with the use of the PRESTO Services;

f)€ € € € € €  protect you and PRESTO from error and fraud

g)€ € € € €  better understand your needs and eligibility for products and services offered by PRESTO or the Service Providers;

h)€ € € € €  communicate to you those products and services that may be of interest to you;

i)€ € € € € € €  improve the products and/or services offered to you; and

j)€ € € € € € €  comply with legal and regulatory requirements.
What they do not list is the fact that the GO Transit system uses “tap on” and “tap off”. What this means is that you get on the bus, you tap your card and it makes a record that you boarded the bus. When you leave the bus you are required to “tap off” which makes a record that your trip ended. From a billing standpoint this means they keep track of your trip. They know where you get on the bus, and where you get off. This means the government (who owns Metrolinx) has your name & address, and can attach your trip information to their records and more readily build a personality profile on you.

The PRESTOCARD itself is RFID based and is read by an RFID reader on every bus. At some point the reader talks to head office, I suspect using WiFi communications. If anyone knows more about Presto and Wifi please leave a comment. I’ve discovered the Wifi prestocard client while on the bus using tools from the Aircrack-ng suite of utilities. My only guess is that this is how they update the billing records on the road.

Since Metrolinx is owned by the Government of Ontario, there will be no third party disclosure issues when handing the information over to the police, or other government agencies. When CCTV exists on Go Transit buses, facial recognition technology will get help via a list of names of people riding the bus since the trip is tracked for billing purposes. If you use your PRESTOCARD on Mississauga or Brampton Transit, it will already “out you” to CCTV. Not to mention the fact that the government will have information on your entire trip from start to finish. This information is valuable to the government and there are many uses. One of the more pragmatic things I can think of would be to give the government statistics it can use to market its incumbent political party to demographics more likely to vote for them.

What ever happened to the right to travel anonymously? Metrolinx, Go Transit and PRESTOCARD are all services that will remove this right and people will simply adapt before complaining. Those of us who don’t want to be tracked will stand out, we’ll get evil looks from bus drivers when we don’t tap on, and disgruntled looks from people waiting in line while people like me pay cash.

Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

Representing and Speaking for Animals
If I ever choose to take this matter to tribunal with animals-centric NGOs on my side, it'll get some press coverage for sure
Slopwatch: Fake Articles About "Linux", Slop Images in VentureBeat, Linux Foundation Spam Made With LLM Slop and Slop Images
The only relief or upside - if any exists - is that the pace of slop was down a bit this week
Richard Stallman (RMS) Talk in Ethereum Cypherpunk Congress Will be Remote
This past week RMS received lots of accolades online
 
Links 29/08/2025: Lisa Cook Sues Convicted Felon and Backdoor Mandate in UK Resisted
Links for the day
Links 29/08/2025: Arti 1.5.0, War on Public Health (CDC), and Slop 'Bros' Made to Pay for Their Mass Plagiarism
Links for the day
No, 4Chan is Not Fighting for You by Lawyering Up Against Ofcom (UK)
Don't mistake proto-fascists for people who "fight for you". They don't.
Downlplaying the Impact of "UEFI 9/11" is a Losing Strategy
we won't publish much whilst on holiday
In Many Places in the World Vista 11 "Market Share" is Going Down, Not Up
In some countries Windows is already down to third place or lower
More Microsoft-Connected Layoffs, at Least Third Time This Month! (Also Another Death on Campus)
Microsoft as a "gaming" company is where studios, projects, games, and even developers come to die
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, August 28, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, August 28, 2025
Gemini Links 29/08/2025: Poems, Games, and Java 25 Performance
Links for the day
Links 28/08/2025: Greenland 'Interferences' by US and Skinnerboxes to Get Banned in Korean Schools
Links for the day
The Register MS (Run by Microsoft Operatives): Free Software is Putin, Hence Evil and Dangerous
The current editor in chief is an American Microsofter, the previous one went to work for Google (US)
Links 28/08/2025: Chatbots Distorting/Fabricating History and Also Driving Suicide
Links for the day
Gemini Links 28/08/2025: Back in Japan and Why "Hacker News" Sucks
Links for the day
A Much-Needed Wake-up Call to Users of Wordpress.com, Blogspot, Substack and All Those Other Outsourced (and Centralised) Platforms
There are several lessons in there
The UEFI 9/11 - Part II - Campaign of Censorship and Defamation Against Critics
In dictatorships, humour serves an important role. It's tragic.
Open Source Initiative (OSI) Resists Software Freedom, Even by Attacking Its Own
The OSI is compromised
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, August 27, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, August 27, 2025
Slopwatch: linuxsecurity.com, Slopfarms in Google News, and More
Some readers of ours end up sending us links that are from slopfarms, not realising those are slopfarms
Gemini Links 27/08/2025: Katrina Memories and Google Versus Software Freedom
Links for the day
Links 27/08/2025: Police Against Media Freedom in the UK, Energy-Hungry Countries Targeted by China
Links for the day
Microsoft Windows Fell to All-Time Lows in Egypt This Summer, Vista 11 Adoption Decreases While GNU/Linux Increases
Vista 11 is going down rather than up
Links 27/08/2025: Microsoft Demoralises Staff With Slop Demands, Leaving Mastodon Explained
Links for the day
12 Hours Ago The Register MS Published a Fake (Paid-for) Article, But This One for a Change Did Not Promote a Ponzi Scheme
There are also Free software alternatives, but they don't pay The Register MS for "synthetic" so-called 'journalism'
More People Need to Call Out and Put a Stop to Serial Sloppers
Unless slopfarms are stopped, people will read and share Microsoft propaganda made by chatbots
Gemini Links 27/08/2025: Headphones and Tartarus
Links for the day
Morale at Microsoft is Terrible (Proprietary Plagiarism Machines Have No Future, LLM Slop is a Bubble)
The slop sceptics/critics are going to have lots of "told you so" moments
GNOME "governance issues, staff reduction, etc." amidst Albanian whistleblowing and women trafficking
Notice the connection to Software Freedom Conservancy (SFC) and GNOME
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, August 26, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, August 26, 2025