Brendan JonesOct 6, 2024

The rise of Mastodon has made me so much more aware of government services requiring us to use private companies’ systems to communicate with them and access services.

Sitting on a Dutch train just now I was shown on a screen “feeling unsafe in the train? Contact us via WhatsApp”.

What if I don’t use WhatsApp? (I do, but I wish I didn’t have to) I’m forced to share my data with Meta to use it.

Public systems should not require use of private services.

#NS #Netherlands #FOSS #privacy

Show threadBrendan JonesOct 6, 2024

To be fair, if you go to their website it does say that you can also use SMS, but there’s no mention of that on the message that was displayed on the train.

https://www.ns.nl/reisinformatie/voorzieningen/veiligheid-in-de-trein-en-op-het-station.html

Veilig reizen met NS | NS

Stuur een WhatsApp of sms-bericht naar nummer 06 13 18 13 18, om overlast of onveilige situaties in de trein of op het station te melden.

Nederlandse Spoorwegen
Show threadMarijn
@Brendanjones I was looking at once of these NS train display a minute before I saw your toot and, though the WhatsApp default stuck me as weird too, it definitely also mentions sms
Oct 6, 2024 at 2:53pmWeb