Tourism and the Digital Trail

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Want to drive all over India? FasTag will track whatever motor vehicle you are in (unless you are from the VVIP/VIP categories, which is certainly something that needs to be re-considered.


Want to travel by train in India? Reserving online and often across the counter requires some form of identification or the other and then once onboard, yes, you do have to prove your identity 


Want to fly across India? Most certainly a digital trail, from booking the ticket through to check-in and often even when making an exit, will track you.


Need to withdraw cash or make payments? Unless you carry wads of cash, which shall get you stopped at various checkpoints, or exchange gold for cash (again, very risky) you just left tracks as bright as spotlamps.


Have to check into any sort of hotel, guest house, paying guest accomodation? Be prepared to enter and provide a copy of some form of digital ID that will be placed in multiple data-bases.


Taking fuel at a filling station? Some have started accepting FasTag, almost all will accept paperless transactions, and each one of them has multiple video-cameras logging entry and exit.


Entering a monument which has differential rates for Indian and foreign tourists? You may well be asked to prove your identity and Nationality.


Spending large amounts of cash, say more than 50,000/- rupees, at any one transaction? The taxman and others want to know, for sure.


(Anecdotal - I once discovered about 6000/- rupees in 10/- notes that had been placed somewhere at home, and was carrying them hand-baggage by air. That's 600 currency notes, and sure enough, the airport security scanner spotted them. Big in number but just fine in value, both the security person grinned at each other, and that was that. But a few hundred currency notes shall trigger some buttons at most places.)


Personally, in this day and age, I am all for this sort of tracking. If I am not doing anything wrong, I have no objection to being on a scanner, most of the times if not all the times it is for my own safety and larger security of everyone else around.





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