Gov't cameras in your car? E-toll patent hints at Big Brotherish future

Gov't cameras in your car? E-toll patent hints at Big Brotherish future

redtape.msnbc.msn.com

Kapsch TrafficCom AG, an Austrian company that just signed a 10-year contract to provide in-car transponders such as the E-Z Pass to 22 electronic highway toll collection systems around the U.S., recently filed a patent on technology to add multi-function mini-cameras to their toll gadgets. Today, transponders are in about 22 million cars around the U.S. Adding inward and outward facing cameras to the gadgets would create surveillance capabilities far beyond anything government agencies

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The story goes on to state that there are efforts being taken to ensure that this technology is not going to be improperly used and that privacy will be protected. It further explains that the filing of the patent was merely a process to protect intellectual property.

Really? Within the past month we have learned of OnStar tracking the movements of vehicles with the devices even after the service was canceled. We find out that Facebook is tracking behavior after you have left the site. We have the CEO of Linked-In publically saying that "privacy is a thing for old people".

If we have learned anything it is that if there is an opportunity for privacy to be violated, it will be violated.

The EZ pass is a perfect avenue to violate your privacy. You get the pass and fly past tolls. You want to pay cash? No problem, just expect to wait a half hour as they continue to cut down on the cash toll lanes. If you are using that road/bridge to commute, they are pretty much forcing you to take the EZ pass route and all of the potential tracking that goes with it.

redtape.msnbc.msn.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

I think I'll be spray painting mine to match the color of my dashboard.

I like everything to match... too bad the paint covered the camera lens.

You privacy is quaranteed!**


(small print)
**Unless we think you are committing a criminal act, or ever have, in which case we will get a "sopeana" from a "judge" and use anything we can dig up from our technology against you.

With your EZ pass, you get a pretty metallic sleeve that you can put it in where GPS cannot track it. You can throw it in the glove box.

There is no law that says you have to keep it mounted. When that law comes, then worry.

There are cameras already at the toll booths in case you run the booth or your EZ pass doesn't work.

Most people are already exposed to this tracking via their active GPS units, Smartphones, On-Star technologies and even more than a few 'sensors and recorders' that are not even considered noteworthy enough to inform the consumer about.

Insurance companies, telecomms, and satellite service providers.... do you really think they aren't already sharing their data and capabilities with the governments that govern their regulation?

Would you have said the same of the Big phone carrier companies that facilitated our being spied upon and subsequently were granted 'retroactive-immunity' (a distinctly unconstitutional thing) by our legislative branches?

I wouldn't be too uptight about this.... they already can do whatever they want, and while you may be able to thwart some aspects of it... you can't escape the totality of their coverage..... the real shame is that we pay for the privilege.

reply to post by nixie_nox


In theory that works, but when you are driving the same exact route, almost on auto-pilot it is pretty easy to cruise over the bridge with the thing not exposed. Getting the $150 ticket for running the toll makes putting the thing on the windshield something that most folks will do.

Additionally, they suggest that this will be used to track your use of HOV lanes, indicating that they will begin to charge for their use. I would predict that having one of these transponders will be required by law. They are already seeking to implement more robust "black boxes" in your vehicle, kicking around ideas to tax folks for miles driven as a way to generate revenue and have recently upheld the law where they can strip your smart phone of all data without a warrant when you are pulled over for a routine traffic stop. Cameras are the next logical step. They can see you without a seatbelt - ticket in the mail. The can see you take an illegal lane change - ticket in the mail. You have 6 people in a 5 seat car - ticket in the mail. You are talking on your phone while driving - ticket in the mail. There are so many ways that this technology can be used to expand the scope of the government for revenue enhancing measures it will be absolutely irresistible for them not to use it.

The writing is on the wall. The government wants to track your movements. In some cases to take more of your money based on your behavior and in other cases under some bogus guise of "security".

I heard about 3 years ago they were kicking around the concept of setting up EZ-Pass readers every mile on major highways/turnpikes to monitor your speed. If you reached each mile-marker faster than say, 50 seconds, it would mean you were speeding, and they would mail you a speeding ticket after the fact.

I think it got shot down, but it still pissed me off. If I lived near the highway, I would seriously start sabotaging them if they passed that law.

reply to post by dolphinfan


I see what you are saying that if your a daily commuter, that removing it constantly would be a hassle. But then we have to remove our gps, cell phone chargers, etc. It can become a daily routine.

I only use mine to travel long distances, so when it is not in use, in the sleeve and the glove box it goes.

I don't like the exposure anymore then anyone else.

But something that people have to keep in mind, is that all this information needs to be stored some place, and storing stuff is expensive.

Why do you think the scameras cost the state so much?

A lot of cars, especially higher end models, have had the black boxes for quite some time now.

But my stbxh is an ASE cert mechanic, and he says the information is very expensive to remove, and is usually only done in high profile accidents or cases.

it is the same for a lot of this, just because they can, doesn't mean they will, because the handling of information is expensive.
Ask any hospital or scan center that has has to store images, it gets pretty pricey.
And jurisdictions right now don't have the funds.

Unfortunatley we live in a society that requires driving, yet driving is a privelage of the state, they can do what they want.

It is still much cheaper to have a state trooper to sit there then to have ezpass scanners line the highways.

Back to the black boxes, I have always had the question of, were the black boxes in the vehicles underneath the twin towers and next to them, ever read?

it is the same for a lot of this, just because they can, doesn't mean they will, because the handling of information is expensive.

I think different, because they can, they eventually will. I have no doubt about that, but most of us could see this coming a mile away. Only a matter of time. Imo.

reply to post by pigwithoutawig


You're absolutely right - they have it and it will be used. It is the same thing as the Facebook, telecom and Google data - it will be categorized a national security asset (if it has not already been) and the government will mine that data for their purposes - without warrant and without your knowledge.

The EZ pass thing has too many things going for it not to be used for government review of behavior.

1. The price point of the device (the individual device) is low, hence nobody will really complain about the cost of purchasing it, either voluntarily or not, e.g. its tagged onto the purchase of vehicle.

2. The revenue potential makes the ROI from a government perspective easy to pencil. The will be able to show how implementing this technology will pay for itself through more efficient toll collection and the capture of fees that were, prior to the technology impossible or difficult/expensive to collect.

3. They will be able to bundle a ton of road safety/health care ramifications into the proposal, further justifying it. It will reduce speeding by X, thus reducing car accidents by Y thus saving # lives and Z in health care costs. In otherwords, more government BS laden with impossible to prove assumptions.

4. The national security/law enforcement aspects will be paramount. "There is a big drug route between Washington DC and NYC, hence tracking folks who make that trip on a regular basis will be an effective means of slowing the drug trade". "Mexican drug gangs transport between Arizona and the northern states, hence tracking trips out of Arizona will help stem the violence on the border". All concoctions of "making us safer" will be used.

5. The government corruption possible here will be tremendous. This is yet another arm of the corporate infrastructure that is the military industrial complex. Who will run the assets that collect and manage the data? Firms like Northrup Grumman and GE. Who will perform the analysis of the data? Firms like Booz-Allen and Blackwater. Who will do the field implementation of the data collection points? Firms like Haliburton.

There is no doubt that the tracking of your physical movements is becoming increasingly a reality. There is too much money to be made for it not to be.

all the more reason to fix up old classics. in many areas you get a pass on smog test, and if its old enough itle still work after an emp/solar flare.