> You can purchase one without your name and address but you can only add money to it using your bank-account. The system tracks all travelers' movements (departure and end points for each leg of every journey), in most cases combined with the traveler's identity. It retains the data for seven years
Not to discredit your whole post but is this really the case. You can buy those 1 hour/24 hour/48 hour passes for cash. With a 1 hour one you aren't exactly required to check out if you don't use it again (on tram at least).
You're right, you can buy the one-time cards and they won't be able to track you. But for regular travellers like myself those one-time cards are much more expensive than the ones linked to your bank account. Not to mention the hassle of having to buy a new card every day...
That hassle can in principle be totally mitigated. When you buy an OV-Chipkaart from a service desk (like an NS desk at a train station), they will not only charge you the 15€ (or whatever) fee, but they will also ask you how much you want to use to load the card. You can pay cash at such a desk.
You could probably also use those desks to reload the OV-Chipkaart with cash, but I've never tried that.
> You could probably also use those desks to reload the OV-Chipkaart with cash, but I've never tried that.
You should be able to, especially the older generation has trouble with modern payment systems and (perhaps rightfully so) mistrust paying stuff by card.
Yes and no. VPS' providers under Europeaian juridistiction will have to collect and store all the information of their customers (emails, telephone calls) but if you're an American customer to a Europian VPS provider and you host an email-server on that VPS, you aren't forced to save that data for use by the europeian countries.
Funny that this thread has become about the Netherlands.
I moved to Amsterdam from Seattle last November, and have to say that I feel far less vulnerable here, information-wise. Perhaps if I compared the policies and behaviors of only the national governments, I would remember the US as the land of the free, but I prefer to take all levels of government and corporate power into account.
How can you "feel" information vulnerability? That's kind of a ridiculous concept. Everything you type into your computer could literally be broadcast onto a massive LED screen in a public square on the other side of the planet and you would never "feel" a thing.
True. When I was in the US I was weary to approach a police officer. To me they looked rather edgy. A 'don't f*ck with me attitude'. Our police are pussy's compared to yours! My travel agency even warned me for the police in the poorer parts of Missisipy. As a non-american I could not fully understand the English some people over there spoke. (Alabama and in The deep south). Oddly enough people over there thought I was from NY or something when I talked to them.
LOL, how are those rose-colored glasses working out for you? Of course you'd feel more free, everything that threatens your freedom is swept under the rug here! 'Massive uproar' (read: more than 3 newspaper articles) about something (like EPD)? Just shelve it and try again next year! Never takes more than 2 or 3 tries! Do you realize how extensive the data logging (phone and internet records, plus phone taps) is here? And while we may not have the technology just yet to do really impressive data mining, in a few years time we will (or rather, 'they' will) and there will be nothing left that is private, especially when (in 10 years time) cash payments will be relegated to only buying things costing as much as a packet of gum. Think that's crazy? Sure, that's what people said of me when I said the same thing about data mining debit card payments 10 years ago - and look what was in the news just two weeks ago! The biggest Dutch processor of electronic payments will start selling that data to BigCo for marketing purposes! Sure it's been called off for now, but see my first sentence; next year, they'll be a lot more careful about not making any noise about it when they introduce it.
even without considering that you charge an anonymous card with your bank account, if you keep only one, it's quite easy to follow patterns still. Especially if they have already targeted a person and they have additional information, there are not so many people that check in X and check out Y on days W,Z.. and so on. The more additional info you have, the narrower the search space.
This isn't even true. At the railway ticket machines you can buy an anonymous card with just coins. Yes, it does cost 7.50 euro, and it does let you charge in 1 euro increments.
Yes, the data is collected, but no, they are not allowed to use it on a case by case basis, only aggregated and only individual trips. Data has been thrown away with lawyers and auditors present to watch.
Not to discredit your whole post but is this really the case. You can buy those 1 hour/24 hour/48 hour passes for cash. With a 1 hour one you aren't exactly required to check out if you don't use it again (on tram at least).