S-Bahn Card Readers Start Judging Your Face
Ticket inspectors, app designers, and transit managers sell it as a smarter fare system, but the real upgrade is a new way to embarrass anyone who looks poor, tired, or foreign enough to be asked twice.
The machines keep failing in public, then the staff arrive to perform authority in front of commuters who already know the script. Meanwhile the agency gets to talk about modernization while making honest riders do the unpaid work of proving they belong on a train.