New public transport chip card postponed after successful hack

The introduction of the new public transport chip card (the OV-chipkaart), which is to replace the old 'strippenkaart', is most likely going to be postponed after the security protection of the card has been hacked.

Last week, German students announced they had deciphered part of the security code on the chip card. The producer of the card then reacted that this was not important, as only part of the security had been hacked, the card was still safe, and free rides or stealing money was not possible.

This week, students of the Nijmegen University showed on tv that they had successfully made copies of the pre-paid day card. With the copied card they could make endless free rides.
The card producer admitted that this was possible, but not very important, as the non-personal pre-paid cards would only be a few 10,000 cards. Compared to the millions of personal cards, this is not very much, and also the card users don't run a risk.

After it became known that the privacy laws are breached by the public transport companies, the introduction of the card, scheduled for 2009 has become very uncertain.

The OV-chipcard is an electronic card which will replace all other public transport tickets in the Netherlands (for bus, tram, metro and trains). For tourists there will be pre-paid cards.
Tests are now being run in i.a. Rotterdam and Amsterdam. So far, the tests have brought to light many technical problems, which has led to a lot of criticism.

The government has ordered new investigations into the security of the card, and there will be a debate in parliament about the issue.