Transport for London has reopened the application process for Zip photocards for customers aged 5-10, 11-15, and 16-17.

Applications were suspended after a recent cyber security incident, and new applications are being phased in, and have already restarted for photocards for 60+ London residents, 18+ Students, Apprentices, and 18-25 Care Leavers living in London.

Until customers receive their new photocards, existing ones will be accepted until 31 December 2024, even if they have expired.

If anyone has incurred additional travel costs because the photocard website was unavailable, they can claim a refund of those costs.

Transport for London will be writing to photocard customers shortly advising them how to claim.

The cyber security incident was noted during routine monitoring of Transport for London’s computer systems, which are configured to ensure only authorised personnel can gain access.

The suspicious activity was identified on 1st September, and immediate action was taken to secure the computer network and ensure all safety-critical systems and processes were maintained.

In order to deal with the incident, it was necessary to suspend applications for new photocards while important security checks were carried out.

These have been completed and the concession photocard website has been fully restored.

Please see the Transport for London for full details

“We’re pleased that we can now accept photocard applications for all concessions managed by TfL and will be working hard to process these as quickly as possible. We apologise for any inconvenience that this has caused our customers. Following the recent highly sophisticated cyber security incident, we have been working to restore systems which we had to take offline as part of our mitigations. We are now able to start processing refunds for those requiring refunds for journeys made using Oyster or paper tickets. We hope to shortly contact all new photocard customers who those who were impacted by not being able to apply for their new photocard, as well as continue work to allow us to begin processing refunds for contactless journeys, and for customers to be able to see their full journey history again.”

Shashi Verma, Transport for London Chief Technology Officer