[LINK] contactless credit cards

Tom Worthington tom.worthington at tomw.net.au
Tue Nov 16 09:22:34 AEDT 2010


Kim Holburn wrote:

> On 2010/Nov/09, at 3:51 PM, stephen at melbpc.org.au wrote: McDonalds
> contactless card rollout to lower skimming risk
> By Liz Tay on Nov 9, 2010 http://www.itnews.com.au/News ...

Canberra's ACTION bus service is introducing a contactless smart card
ticket card system "MyWay". Card readers are being fitted to the
buses, but the cards are not yet on sale. This makes the system very
secure and inexpensive for passengers. ;-)

The system was due to be in use by the end of the year but has been
delayed to "early" 2011. It is based on the Perth "SmartRider" system,
with Parkeon hardware:
<http://blog.tomw.net.au/2010/11/new-belconnen-bus-stations-in-canberra.html>.

In theory transit systems do not need their own special smart tickets, 
as the contactless smart cards issued by banks could be used. That would 
be convenient for the passenger, as they would not have to obtain a 
separate card and keep it topped up with funds. But it would be a 
security risk, as the same card would then have access to a bank 
account. It would also lower revenue for governments, which make money 
from the float of funds held on the tickets.


-- 
Tom Worthington FACS CP HLM, TomW Communications Pty Ltd. t: 0419496150
PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia  http://www.tomw.net.au
Adjunct Senior Lecturer, School of Computer Science, The
Australian National University http://cs.anu.edu.au/courses/COMP7310/
Visiting Scientist, CSIRO ICT Centre: http://bit.ly/csiro_ict_canberra




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