Everyone carries an Octopus card in Hong Kong, because it’s used everywhere. When you take the bus, you pay the fare by tapping your wallet (with Octopus card in it) on the scanner; the fare may change depending on whether you take it before or after crossing the harbour. Subway fares aren’t flat-rate either, so shorter routes are cheaper. The distance you travel is tracked by scanning your card when you get on and again when you get off, and the appropriate amount is deducted.
Even vending machines, parking meters, convenience stores, and restaurants have Octopus scanners used to pay for their services. It’s also used as an identity system, where students sign-in to class by tapping their cards on door scanners, or residents enter their apartment buildings without needing a key.
The Chinese name for the card is “eight arrived pass”, because eight has special meaning in Chinese, especially when it comes to directions. The English name comes from an octopus having eight tentacles, and the logo is an infinity symbol that’s also in the shape of an eight. So clever.
After the revelation that a China-based organization is engaged in sophisticated electronic surveillance and manipulation of computers all over the world; I think that I would be nervous about my financial freedom based on a single card that most people use that could be similarly manipulated by a bureaucratic whim.
A totalitarian government with that kind of control is really scary in times that are already increasingly creepy in a “1984” kind of way.
I would generally agree with you, especially when it comes to the role of China in Hong Kong. They’ve implemented a “hands-off” policy for 50 years after the takeover, but my uncle says that the entertainment and news have subtly Communist overtones.
But after using the system and seeing how convenient it is, I’m of the mind that if you do nothing wrong, then you have nothing to worry about. All things that can be paid with the Octopus card have other options for payment as well, so it’s not a complete lock-down. Yet.
I think the smart cards for student’s ID and access control belong to different small systems, much like the electronic keys for individual hotels.
The Octopus started out as only for the transit system —the 8 tentacles symbolising the extensions of the transit system —thus the name Octopus. Now it’s used also for all kinds of small purchases. Hey, I never thought of the logo as the infinity symbol—how fitting—infinite purposes and all. I bet the original designer never thought of that.
I read that the system has won the Chairman’s Award for World Information Technology and Services Alliance, but that was in 2006, after it’s ubiquitous implementation.
The infinity symbol is also a Möbius strip, which only adds to the cleverness.
I thought it was fantastically convenient while I was there, for transit purposes. But the surveillance aspect is really too creepy in my opinion. It’s so damn easy; but it could go so wrong.
I think it would be great if they could assure people of usage and privacy safeguards (such as: perhaps only one group of people would have access to certain information generated by the card via encrypted means). And there’s always theft.… I really hate crime and surveillance. I feel like our world as we knew it in the few years when I was a child was a much different, much more secure place than it is now.
I know there are certain safeguards in place, but that may mean that someone hasn’t broken those safeguards yet. There have been cases of people finding glitches in the system and recieving free refunds or skipping transit payments.
There’s a limit on the amount of money that can be stored on the cards of $1000 HKD (or around $150 USD), which is definitely in people’s own best interest.