California Protects Black-Box Data Privacy 262
Snowgen writes "According to a story at SFGate.com, California has recently passed a law regulating the little black boxes found in many modern automobiles. The new law requires that manufacturers disclose the existence of such boxes in the vehicle's operators' manual. The law also prohibits the use of data from such boxes without a court order or the permission of the vehicle's owner, unless the data is used in such a way that it can not be traced back to the owner."
Yeah, well (Score:3, Insightful)
Who reads the manual?
Re:Yeah, well (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Dang nammit! (Score:4, Insightful)
"Or without a court order"? (Score:4, Insightful)
So basically it's as useful as the constitutional amendments that begin "Congress shall make no law..." and end in "unless it makes a law that says it can"
Good for them (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Why the hoopla? (Score:5, Insightful)
The collection of vehicle control evidence is a crucial step in the investigation of traffic accidents. Sheltering that information from the authorities has only one purpose, to shield delinquent drivers from retribution for their unlawful acts.C T-style.
I think we've already been through the loop about "If you aren't ${someevilthing}, then you have nothing to worry about." Well, haven't you ever been late to a critical meeting and gone 10mph above the limit? Haven't you ever forgotten to buckle your seatbelt? And don't even get me started on video/audio data collection... My conversations within a car are indeed private, and should not be accesible by the police, the SS or DHS, or what ever. Especially not at-a-distance-we-don't-have-to-tell-you-PATRIOT-A
Shall we also say again that driving a car is a mere PRIVILEGE and far from being a right????
That very well may be, and probably is, but the possesion of that privilege does not nullify a more fundamental right to privacy.
I'd gladly allow access to my blackbox... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:"Or without a court order"? (Score:5, Insightful)
Now, I'm not a fan of this black box thing, but I don't think you're going to win much sympathy here.
Re:Why the hoopla? (Score:5, Insightful)
That's fine by me, but only so long as I'm allowed to remotely download the black box of any police car whenever I choose.
Re:"Or without a court order"? (Score:3, Insightful)
eric
Re:"Or without a court order"? (Score:1, Insightful)
Yes, the other guy's insurance company won't go out of their way to give you data to exonerate yourself.
But your insurance company sure will - if only because it's their $$$ on the line (a damn good reason to carry a policy with high max limits - no insurance company is going to go way out of its way on lawyer bills to protect themselves from losing $50,000. Make it $2,000,000, though, and they will....)
then clearly... (Score:3, Insightful)
As always, they missed a spot (Score:3, Insightful)
This does nothig to protect a person from the abuse of the information when they Rent a car (c.f. the story of the "speeding penalty" enacted by the one rental agency) or when a person has a "company car".
Finally, one wonders whether this separates the purchasers and leasees of cars into two separately and unequally protected classes.
After all, if you lease a car, your leasing company owns it. So the police could end-around and make a request of them to access the black-box.
Then again, section 215 [aclu.org] lets the FBI do any dang thing they want in the search and seizure arena despite the Constitution.
Define Speeding (Score:2, Insightful)
Just my thoughts
Re:Why the hoopla? (Score:2, Insightful)
Absolutely. However, should one choose to break the law and that choice becomes a contributing factor in an accident, then the individual should be held responsible for making that choice.
Thank the recall (Score:3, Insightful)
This is good news, but... (Score:2, Insightful)
We'll probably have our speeds monitored (and our insurance companies notified or even worse, our bank accounts debited) in real time.
Nothing we can do about it. The roads will still have posted speed limits of 55, even though the practical speed of traffic flow is closer to 70. Care to complain? Hey - you were speeding, we have the black box to prove it. Great source of revenue for the states and insurance companies for whom state legislatures have been creating traffic penalties to enrich them.
Exactly, says the RIAA (Score:3, Insightful)
Downloading content on a public network is an eminently public act, and those who do it shall have no more expectations of privacy than someone picking his nose in front of Sack's Fifth Avenue on the morning rush-hour.
The subpenaing of personally identifying information is a crucial step in the investigation of copyright violations. Sheltering that information from the RIAA has only one purpose, to shield delinquent downloaders from retribution for their unlawful acts.
Even moreso, all online activities should be associated with personal identifying information, and be downloadable at distance by law enforcement.
Shall we also say again that using the internet is a mere PRIVILEGE and far from being a right????
Like bascially all laws (such as copyright laws), traffic laws are designed with a certain amount of assumed flexibility in enforcement: flexibility that is destroyed by complete and mandatory disclosing of all data.
My parallel is slightly tongue in cheek... but only slightly. And I can adapt your argument the same way for almost anything. For example, the existance of cash in our economy allows a great deal of crime to take place, because it grants a certain anonymity. Do you really espouse the complete desctruction of the idea of anonymity in our society, in place of a big-brotheresque system that enforces total accountability of everything?
Re:Why the hoopla? (Score:3, Insightful)
What privacy? There never, ever, was any privacy, nor any to be expected, when publicly driving a car in plain public view in the middle of a street.
There was never, ever, any kind of privacy in operating a vehicle on the road.
So? I am merely restating that driving **IS** a privilege, because people think it's a right.
Damn fine well they can. The State has the obligation to see to public safety, and any hazard towards public safety shall be eradicated as swiftly as possible.
It is still **REQUIRED** to be allowed to drive a car. Just like one is **REQUIRED** to be licensed to be called an engineer.
Just like you have to ***EARN*** your driving license.
You just proven my point.
A right is far more important than a privilege. You have the right to go free; removing that right, by jailing you, is a pretty involved process. By contrast, pulling your driving privilege is far more easier to do.
I would damn well be affected by such a law, because it would tremenduously increase the road safety, and thus decrease the likelihood of me being hit by a car whenever I'm walking (on the sidewalk) or riding my bicycle.
No, I don't give a flying fuck about what motorist say, I don't have to because everything is done for them and they certainly never listen to others, and nothing is done for pedestrians, public tr
Re:Removal - Black box is a misnomer (Score:4, Insightful)
It is impossible to remove this "black box" because on any car that supports OBD, *EVERY* computer in the car logs some sort of data. The important stuff is logged in the same computer that controls how your engine runs. It IS possible to clear the data using a diagnostic tool designed to do so. See the SAE J1979 standard if you're interested learning how to do this.
Re:"Or without a court order"? (Score:1, Insightful)
Computers can be programmed to print out or store anything. Simply having the data is not proof.
The device was in a wreck. Who the hell knows if what the sensors recorded was correct...
Even if what the sensors tracked was correct, who knows if the circuitry stored the values they saw!
There are simply too many IFs for me to be comfortable in trusting a device to use as evidence - especially one which now puts the burden of proving one's innocence on one!
Just tell me where the friggin memory chip is, and I'll start drilling it out tomorrow...