All the better to track you with, my dear.
Those drive by toll scanners are great for paying tolls. Also really great for recording, for all time, everyone who drives under them.
Standardizing a fare payment system just does the same for mass transit.
Not that there aren’t programs to add facial recognition in all these spaces which could be good enough, but why make it easy?
Until there’s a Federal privacy framework which limits the amount and duration of information the government can collect, and some reason to believe the NSA, DEA, and FBI are actually adhering to those agreements, above and beyond admissibility in court, I am staunchly opposed to any of these systems in the name of efficiency.
It needs to be illegal to use these tolling systems for surveillance, because the next “gas tax” is squaring up to be a GPS based mileage tax.