So the other day I was online, as usual, with the TV on in the background, as usual. One of those incessant cop/forensic type shows was on - I didn’t notice which one. At one point, the cops were trying to locate a suspect, and they called Onstar. The operator happily gave the cops the suspect car’s current location. The scene was clearly just intended as a throwaway product placement moment, but it sure made me do a double take, and I’m not typically one to see Big Brother lurking behind every new gadget that comes out.
What’s the law on this? Is there a law yet? Can Onstar freely give out clients’ locations to the cops without a warrant? Do they?
(Please note this is in GQ, not GD. I just want to know what the current legal situation is. Thanks.)
Considering that On-star is a private company that can do pretty much whatever they want with their files, since the location of your vehicle is hardly a secret, I would imagine that there is no law against it. Forcing OnStar to provide information to law enforcement without their permission/cooperation would require a warrant.
OnStar pinpointing you would be little different than a local business owner, who knows the police are looking for you, calling the police after you stop by to do business. Your location in public is not confidential, you’re just the proverbial needle in a haystack.
I know the straight dope on this one!
My company also sells telematics equipped auto here in the US. Telematics is the generic term for On-Star type systems.
These systems have in them a cell phone, GPS receiver, and a back up battery.
These systems do several things.
When the customer runs out of gas/gets a flat/engine stalls/etc and pushes the button an analog cell phone call is made to the dispatch center. At the same time the car transmits some data about the cars condition (In our case fuel level, keys in ignition, temp inside and outside, battery voltage, airbag status and latitude and longitude) the call center can then locate the car and dispatch appropriate service. If the cell call does not go though the data burst might, and the operator can make an educated guess as to what the problem is (No fuel = truck with gas)
In the event of an airbag deployment (or rear end collision) the call center calls the car to enquire if the passengers are OK. If there is no response the call center rolls emergency equipment. (So if some asshole hits you and you are bound and determined to beat the shit out of the guy, you might want to wait until after the telematics call is done so you don’t have police and fire as witnesses. )
If the alarm in the car goes off and is not cancelled by using the remote, the call center calls the customer (NO not the car phone, but by the phone number in the records, probably a land line or cell) to notify them.
If the car is stolen the customer can request that the call center track the car. When this request is made the call center establishes a non-voice call to the car and instructs the car to phone broadcast the location back to the call center. After this has been done, the police can contact the call center and be given the location of the car. Our call center will not give the position of any stolen car to the owner, only the police.
in the washington dc area last year police used one of these systems (not sure of the brand) to track and capture a criminal who hijacked the car from a young mother. he dragged her out of her car, kicked her into the street and took off with her kids in the back seat. (he had been running from the cops in a different stolen car and had pretty much gotten away when that one ran out of gas.) i can’t imagine any rational objection to the police using these systems to lock up bad guys. if the cops call on-star and ask where’s joe blow, how is that any different from calling his employer/his wife/his best friend and asking the same question?
There’s a HUGE difference. It would be hard to answer without giving a GD type reply. Let’s just say it involves rice sized chips and implants, and how it would be unethical, IMO.
I am too lazy to look it up, but there was a story on Slashdot relating to this a month or three back, that I will paraphrase:
The police in some city obtained a warrant to activate the emergency services of a criminal suspect’s vehicle that was equipped with OnStar. Doing this allowed them to hear what was being discussed inside the vehicle (because the built-in cellphone has an open mic), but to use it this way required deactivating the normal emergency-activation of the car’s OnStar system, such as if the car had really been in an accident.
The OnStar company went to court and argued that the warrant was unconstitutional on the grounds that in order to use the in-car system this way, the emergency activation had to be temporarily (and remotely) disabled–and that left the OnStar company wide open to liability for deactivating it. The judge ruled for OnStar, and suspended the warrant requiring them to perform this service.
I probably don’t have this all exactly right, but that was the general order of things. -And do note: the monitoring company did not argue against doing this on privacy grounds, only on the fact that doing it subjected them to excessive liability.
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OnStar may choose to assume that all requests from law enforcement are made “in good faith”, and provide whatever information is requested. That leads me to question how they establish whether a caller asking for this kind of info is a legitimate law enforcement officer.
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