Passengers information in public transport and privacy: Can anonymous tickets prevent tracking?

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Date
2014-07-19
Authors
Avoine, Gildas
Calderoni, Luca
Delvaux, Jonathan
Maio, Dario
Palmieri, Paolo
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Elsevier
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Abstract
Modern public transportation companies often record large amounts of information. Privacy can be safeguarded by discarding nominal tickets, or introducing anonymization techniques. But is anonymity at all possible when everything is recorded? In this paper we discuss travel information management in the public transport scenario and we present a revealing case study (relative to the city of Cesena, Italy), showing that even anonymous 10-ride bus tickets may betray a user's privacy expectations. We also propose a number of recommendations for the design and management of public transport information systems, aimed at preserving the users’ privacy, while retaining the useful analysis features enabled by the e-ticketing technology.
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Keywords
Privacy , Public transport , Sensitive data management , Privacy preserving technology
Citation
Avoine, G., Calderoni, L., Delvaux, J., Maio, D. and Palmieri, P. (2014) 'Passengers information in public transport and privacy: Can anonymous tickets prevent tracking?', International Journal of Information Management, 34(5), pp. 682-688. doi: 10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2014.05.004