TIME magazine has an article this week on Event Data Recorders (EDRs) in cars; apparently, they’ve been used to convict the guilty and acquit the innocent. Nonetheless, the ACLU is worried about invasion of privacy. My question is: When you are driving your car down a public road, do you really have any expectation of privacy?
Here’s a secondary but less important question: Does anybody else think Richard Slade is a first-class prick? Here’s his quote, after his son killed two innocent people by driving 139 miles per hour into the side of the other car: "“The minute the prosecutors had the speed from the ‘black box,’ they upped the charges to murder. They had what they needed to force a plea down our throats.”
My quote in response: “Oh, boo-hoo, you, you rich, self-important asshole! Your worthless spawn killed a nurse! They’re useful to society! Your son? Not so much, apparently!”
And this from the father of two boys, neither of which raced a $50,000 automobile into the driver’s seat of a nurse’s Jeep.
But seriously – EDRs: Do these things really pose a threat to our privacy?
No more than FDRs threaten the privacy of pilots. This has been a big issue for new car buyers, some of which write into the enthusiast magazines saying that they will never buy another Corvette until it goes away, others saying that they sold their cars as soon as they found out they were “being watched”.
It’s not like it’s Lojack or anything. There’s no signal going out of the car. They’re not tracking you. At worst it covers the last few seconds before a collision, thus aiding in the determination of fault which is something that is done routinely anyway.
I don’t know what the big deal is.
On the other hand, if it does transmit information without your knowledge or consent, that’s a problem. I haven’t seen anything about that anywhere, though.
the technology available is fragrant with possibilities. Low-cost GPS, coupled with data recorders allows Oregon to ponder taxing cars and trucks by mileage driven, in addition to regular fuel taxes. Good idea? Maybe, maybe not. The point being there will likely be little choice in the matter. Law enforcement authorities may, in the future, be able to disable cars remotely. Perhaps speeders could have their cars disabled, etc.
The TIME article does mention technology that allows the tracking of vehicles, but it’s not yet available, and there apparently aren’t any plans to use it.
The real question, though, is: If you’re driving on a public street, how much privacy can you reasonably expect?
The potential for abuse here is enormous. Yes, parents can use these devices to track and monitor their kids when they borrow the car. OTOH, the first time a cop shuts down someones car and it causes an accident, you are going to be looking at multi-million dollar lawsuits. I also object, both in principle and in practice to the police having the capability to monitor people remotely.
Sunrazor, it won’t be too long before the Supremes rule on just that subject. Right now, I have no idea what the rulings are. Search and siezure is one thing, but info gained by you being out on the street just driving along?
Yep. I imagine that there will soon be another form to sign when you buy a car, aknowledging that you know there is an EDR installed and what it does. I doubt it’ll be accurately compared with sobriety stops, where your actual person is “searched” for evidence of alcohol consumption, but some folks will probably work really hard to blur the line.
I’m sorta’ glad nobody has addressed the secondary question – please don’t do it here. I realized what I really need to do is open a new thread in the Pit.
Not so much, really. I think my fellow drivers have a reasonable expectation that I’m going to drive responsibly, and if I don’t do that, I need to deal with the consequences. I don’t see a difference between a police officer using a radar to check my car’s speed and an on-board computer doing the same thing. (The one apparent point of universal agreement is that when you buy a car, somebody needs to tell you whether it has an EDR on it.)
Driving is one of those things that has so much potential for impacting (no pun intended) the lives of other people, and in really serious ways. It’s taken a long time for me to get past my outrage over sobriety checkpoints – and I still don’t know what I’ll do if I’m ever stopped at one. I know I won’t be able to keep my opinion to myself, but I’ll probably comply, like every other sheep in the flock. But the one thing that keeps me sane about it is the dangerous nature of sharing the roadways with other people. The EDR issue will probably go a long way toward helping folks like me accept other intrusions on personal freedom in the name of public safety.
If, however, you feel strongly that this is an unconstitutional invasion of privacy, you need to fight hard to prevent its use in criminal proceedings. Only by making the government and The People justify these actions as constitutional can we keep from sliding down the slope from sobriety checkpoints and EDRs to the abyss of totalitarianism and state terror.
If there is technology that allows the tracking of vehicles. somebody has plans to use it. I have a feeling that it’s that weird creepy uncle that everyone has, and his name is Sam.
In addition to the regular concerns about privacy, there’s the fact that traffic law is the one area most open to judgement calls. Few people would dispute, for instance, that if you’re alone on a long, flat stretch of highway with speed limit 55 MPH, it’s okay to go faster. Likewise, what about someone who’s rushing their friend to the nearest hospital?
There’s a future possibility of the police will automatically receive data from these boxes, and perhaps react automatically by shutting down cars that violate the law. But even just recording the data has sinister undertones, since it might be used for character assassination purposes. Imagine some politician running ads: “My opponent violated the speed limit 86 times over the last nine years. Do you want a reckless, homicidal maniac like that in the State House?”
That question doesn’t really get to the issue. The fact that I’m driving at 60 MPH on a public road isn’t inherently private, because anyone can sit by the side of the road with a radar gun, or watch me from a helicopter. So in that sense, no, I don’t have an expectation of privacy.
But this is different, because it follows the driver around wherever he goes. If no one’s around to measure your speed, and the only record of it is inside a piece of equipment that you own, then you can expect privacy.
It’s like if I drove out to the middle of the desert, made sure there were no observers around or planes flying overhead, and then stripped naked and started dancing around. I expect privacy in that situation. Now if my car has a secret video camera inside it, and it’s recording my little dance for the police to use as evidence against me… that’s one evil car, and I’d expect not only to be told that it has this feature, but also to be able to turn it off.
If the data is only used to determine fault in an accident, then it is fine. Taking the example of FDR - I would hazarda a guess that many more pilots have been cleared by the data than convicted.
However the danger lies in information collected that is
a) Wrong (due to glitches, wrong information input or similar)
b) Used out of context
The problem in our society is that the appearance of guilt is actually as damaging as actual guilt.
What if the data collected also includes location, then we could end up with…
But your car was parked less than one block from the residence of a known terrorist 3 times in the last month - are you innocent?:
Your car was recorded driving in the red light district 13 times last year - prove you weren’t driving? (and who could prove more than a year later where they were on a specific night, lacking some really memorable party / event)
Or even worse, there was a hit and run on 3 June 2003 on X street, I see that your car drove down X street that night - are you sure you didn’t hit anyone?
All raise questions that are difficult to answer
In the case of the OP - I would use the information, and say thankgod the EDR was installed.
If I ever bought such a car as a Corvette for my children (remembering how I drove my old bangers at that age) I would HAVE one installed, tell them about it and then CHECK IT WEEKLY, confiscating the car if the data showed anything untoward.
Depending on how far it goes, I’m wavering from all out to cautious approval.
I see too many chavs in their hot hatches (ricers they’re called in the US isn’t it?) tearing around at terrific speed and I was clobbered from behind by one who drove into me at the end of a queue of stationary traffic. So yes, I would approve of something black box recorder that can say to the police, car A, drove into the back of stationary car B. Its far too easy for a young in-experienced driver to buy a car that is beyond his or her ability to handle. As a friend of my Dad’s pointed out, there are an awful lot of written off cars with learner plates on them dumped in scrap yards.
I’d almost go further and approve of speed limiters that kick in as soon as your car enters a 30mph speed limit zone. Amazing how many drivers seem to think that there’s a race between speed bumps or traffic lights. Or a box that would measure excessive speed within speed limit zones in town and alert the police the next time the car receives an MOT test for example.
When I’m driving a car I’m in charge of a piece of machinery that could do a fearsome amount of damage even when driven with due care and attention. I don’t think my privacy would be degraded too much from the examples above.
Don’t some trucking companies already do this, to track their equipment and drivers? And I don’t have a problem with that. It’s their truck and their dollar. The same applies to the owners of the vehicle chosing to install/use it (parents or rental agencies).
But what happens when my insurance agency starts demanding that they be given a download of my car’s blackbox, or they will tack on a surcharge? Or how about the auto mechanic that has access to that info on all the cars he works on?
I don’t have any faith that information, once gathered, won’t be leaked. Veterans credit info or AOL search histories anyone?
A former neighbor is a mechanic for Penske Truck Rental and said that they had the capability to not only track the truck, but could disable the engine incrementally forcing a slowdown and stop if required.
If it was possible to put tracking on the vehicles in Iraq, car bombers could become less difficult to prevent. Modified, perhaps they could sense certain chemicals, weights,or even additional electronics running. And GPS might be able to trace where the cars originate from.
When you get caught up in a clot of fast cars on a highway ,sometimes drivmg the speed limit can be dangerous. Most police allow a driver to go 5 over ,due somewhat to the accuracy problems of speedometers and detection equipment. These things would have to be proven accurate. Then we could get rid of highway police and automatically ticket a speeding vehicle. Everybody would have to drive a little under posted. Yep its a great new world out there.