Metro Card: Your Ticket To Ride Or Your Ticket To Being Tracked?

Who would have thought there would be a day when a murder suspect could be acquitted and proven innocent solely on the information his metro card provided? You might say, perhaps, that such a thing was inevitable. I agree.



We are entering the age of “ Privacy Lost”.



In this article we learn brothers Jason and Corey Jones were convicted of shooting a government witness that provided information on drug and gun cases. Both men had records spotted with drug trafficking, guns, and drug usage—and a link to the victim, which made them prime suspects. After a witness came forward to i.d. them, they were facing charges that could have sentenced them to the death penalty. Jason Jones, however, kept on insisting they had detained the wrong man. If his alibi was true, it would have placed him 5 miles away from the scene of the crime at the time the shooting took place. His defense lawyers used an unconventional method to prove their client’s innocence—they asked the NYC Transit Authority to run a trace on his Metro Card (which police had found in his wallet when he was arrested) for the day of the shooting. When the trace came back, Jason Jones’ alibi checked out. He was exactly where he said he had been, according o the traced metro card times.



When I first read this article, I thought “Another way we didn’t even realize we could be traced”. Just like every other “social convenience”, the Metro Card gives you one kind of mobility and takes away another. Then I started thinking of the countless innocent people in jail, and how perhaps something so simple as having the technology to trace Metro Cards existed when they were convicted, they might have been acquitted and leading very different lives. So, maybe…just maybe… even though some privacy has been lost—a new kind of freedom has been gained?



1. How do you feel about being able to be tracked by your Metro Card?
2. Do you think being “trackable” by your Metro Card is more useful than invasive?