Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Big Brother is watching: surveillance box to track drivers is backed.

The erosion of our privacy continues unabated:

The government is backing a project to install a "communication box" in new cars to track the whereabouts of drivers anywhere in Europe, the Guardian can reveal.

Under the proposals, vehicles will emit a constant "heartbeat" revealing their location, speed and direction of travel. The EU officials behind the plan believe it will significantly reduce road accidents, congestion and carbon emissions. A consortium of manufacturers has indicated that the router device could be installed in all new cars as early as 2013.

However, privacy campaigners warned last night that a European-wide car tracking system would create a system of almost total road surveillance.

Quite how this will reduce road accidents I have no idea. It sounds to me as if it would be a useful tool for policing and that it is, therefore, going to be sold to us a lifesaving device.

How does knowing where I am have any effect on how well or badly I am driving my car?

Click title for full article.

2 comments:

daveawayfromhome said...

There's talk of putting a similar device in American cars, under the guise of taxation. The idea is to charge a tax based on the mileage driven, which is, of course, the "only" use these devices would be put to.
Fortunately, even though Republicans love the idea of pay-as-you-go taxation, most of them hate this idea, and enough Democrats hate it also to assure that it probably wont pass.

Kel said...

This is another way that the green issue is going to be used to push through all kinds of shit.

If they can pretend they are doing it to save the planet they really think that we will fall for anything.