STUDENT REPORT OMNY: COMPROMISING THE PRINCIPLES OF CYBER SECURITY ONE TAP AT A TIME By Starasia Wright
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etroCards were initially released in 1993 to replace subway tokens. At the time, MetroCards were considered the most technological enhancement of the transit system. In early 2021, the current payment system: “tap and go” replaced MetroCards. “Tap and go” is also known as contactless payment, which means that they have a chip inside them that emits radio waves. This system is called OMNY: One Metro New York. Riders can tap their debit card, credit card, smartphone, or smartwatch on an electronic (RFID) reader at the turnstile instead of swiping
their MetroCard. When I initially heard about OMNY, I was intrigued, yet, alarmed. As a native New Yorker and frequent commuter, I have witnessed the uprising of the war on fare evasion. The war on fare evasion increased video surveillance and police presence in train stations like my hub, Jamaica Center, and other high-poverty neighborhoods that are predominately Black and Latinx in an attempt to prohibit and discourage riders from not paying their fare. Is OMNY, combined with increased surveillance and police presence, reinforcement to criminalize poverty and perpetuate racial and ethnic bias?
Is OMNY another tracking device that helps advertisers make data collection more convenient? While contactless payments are marketed as convenient, OMNY pay raises privacy concerns; it collects location and payment data, thereby contributing to digital profiling’s pervasiveness and perpetuating racial and ethnic bias. OMNY compromises the principles of cyber security one tap at a time. One of the reasons OMNY raises privacy concerns is the lack of opacity in its data
See OMNY Security Issues Pg 56
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tarasia Wright is a multi-disciplinary, recent undergraduate from CUNY Hunter College. She graduated with a double Bachelor of Arts degree in Computer Science and English with a Linguistics and Rhetoric concentration, English Departmental Honors and multiple awards for her writing. As a double major in Computer Science, Starasia developed a love for Data Science because it allows her to apply her keen attention to detail, strong communication style, and passion for communicating high-level, abstract, ambiguous concepts, like data, with clarity. For the duration of the Summer, she will be working as a Civic Innovation Corps Data Science Intern for the Utah Governor's Office of Planning and Budget. During her undergraduate studies, Starasia also gained an interest in cyber security after taking a course on the ethic challenges of IT (Information Technology). She enjoys cyber security because it is not just about computing but involves human psychology, too. As a critical essayist, she specializes in works that demand change in the world especially at the intersections of technology and morality.
44 JULY 2021
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