Backlash occurs in Japan over sales of train e-ticket records

A privacy debate has erupted in Japan over a new service from a major rail operator that sells private e-ticket records as marketing data.

This week East Japan Railway (JR East), the country’s largest rail company, has begun offering for sale the anonymized histories of millions of its passengers. The data is gleaned from its Suica train pass system, which is Japan’s most popular with 43 million users, roughly equivalent to a third of the national population.

JR East and Hitachi, which will handle the technical aspects of the service, announced it last week via a terse news release that initially drew little attention. But this is the first time Suica information has been sold to third parties, and the news was soon highlighted by prominent bloggers, triggering a discussion that has now spread to Twitter and other online forums.

SOURCE: pcworld.com