Government Cameras In Your Car?
October 14th, 2011Via: MSNBC:
Imagine that you couldn’t drive on major highways without agreeing to put a camera in your car — one that could film either the occupants or the vehicle’s surroundings and transmit the images back to a central office for inspection.
You don’t have to read George Orwell to conjure up such an ominous surveillance state. You just have to skim through filings at the U.S. Patent Office.
It’s hard to imagine Americans would tolerate such a direct, Big-Brotherish intrusion. But they might not notice if the all-seeing cameras were tucked inside another kind of government tracking technology that millions of Americans have already invited into their cars.
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 have tried until now.
The stated reason for an inward-pointing camera is to verify the number of occupants in the car for enforcement of HOV and HOT lanes. The outward-pointing camera could be used for the same purpose, helping authorities enforce minimum occupant rules against drivers who aren’t carrying transponders.
But it’s easy to imagine other uses. The patent says the transponders would have the ability to store and transmit pictures, either at random intervals or on command from a central office. It would be tempting to use them as part of a search for a lost child, for example, and law enforcement officials might find the data treasure trove irresistible. The gadget could also be instructed to take pictures when the acceleration of a car “exceeds a threshold,” or when accidents occur, so it could be used like an airplane cockpit flight recorder.
my buddy in high school had one of these, back in ’04-’05 im thinkin. his bro got in a fender bender so his parents got one that responded to accelerometer, taking pics of inside and outside then emailing them to his parents account. all voluntary of course, except for the minors involved, heh.
this thing mostly caught us using that car to go bombing around town, and the blinking light signalling the accelerometer had tripped just meant we would put down our smokes so they didnt make it into the pics. the idea of a mandatory system doesnt even seem taht far fetched, i get uneasy thinking about all the brakes and reversing cameras wired into the gps-net on those insights couple years back, pretty much anyone could film anything, huge potential for abuse there. as if the E-Zpass system isnt intrusive enough already, wired right into a bank account.
Several years ago was in a taxi in the Chicago area, and the driver did not have an EZ Pass. He told me that he did not have the Pass because the Inventor of the EZ Pass had ridden in his cab one day and said to him it was a TRACKING DEVICE.
Hence I have never purchased one and keep coins and dollars in my car. Some mornings it is just nice to say hello to a human on my long commute.
Worst thing about this technology is that there are some really weird lights that read the pass. Reminds me of the airport. What’s that freakin blue light doing to my eyes?
I used to close my eyes when I went through but bumped my tire once. Now I just shield my eyes.
I tell people that the EZ Pass is a tracking device and no one seems to care. They think I’m a fool for paying cash. I certainly don’t want anyone to access my bank account either.It’s bad enough having a credit card.