Is your car spying on you?

[Donutboy 0]

Last year, Curt Dunnam bought a Chevrolet Blazer with one of the most popular new features in high-end cars: the OnStar personal security system.

The heavily advertised communications and tracking feature is used nationwide by more than two million drivers, who simply push a button to connect, via a built-in cellphone, to a member of the OnStar staff. A Global Positioning System, or G.P.S., helps the employee give verbal directions to the driver or locate the car after an accident. The company can even send a signal to unlock car doors for locked-out owners, or blink the car's lights and honk the horn to help people find their cars in an endless plain of parking spaces.

A big selling point for the system is its use in thwarting car thieves. Once an owner reports to the police that a car has been stolen, the company, which was started by General Motors, can track it to help intercept the thieves, a service it performs about 400 times each month.

But for Mr. Dunnam, the more he learned about his car's security features, the less secure he felt. A research support specialist at Cornell University, he is concerned about privacy. He has enough technical knowledge to worry that someone else - say, law enforcement officers, or even hackers - could listen in on his phone calls, or gain control over his automotive systems without his knowledge or consent. Any gadget that can track a carjacker, he reasons, can just as readily be used to track him.

OnStar is one of a growing number of automated eyes and ears that enhance driving safety and convenience but that also increase the potential for surveillance. Privacy advocates say that the rise of the automotive technologies, including electronic toll areas, location-tracking devices, "black box" data recorders like those found on airplanes and even tiny radio ID tags in tires, are changing the nature of Americans' relationship with their cars.....

.....Mr. Dunnam said he had become even more concerned because of a federal appeals court case involving a criminal investigation in Nevada, in which federal authorities had demanded that a company attach a wiretap to tracking services like those installed in his car. The suit did not reveal which company was involved. A three-judge panel in San Francisco rejected the request, but not on privacy grounds; the panel said the wiretap would interfere with the operation of the safety services.....

....Other information systems being added to cars can be used for tracking as well. Electronic toll systems are convenient for commuters, but the information is increasingly being used to track movements. When police were trying to track the car of Jonathan P. Luna, an assistant United States attorney who was killed earlier this month, they pulled the records of his charges on his E-ZPass account, which led them to Pennsylvania, where his body was found. Such records have also been used in civil cases like child custody disputes

Of all of the new automotive technologies, none presents a more complex set of benefits and risks than the "black box" sensors that have already been placed in millions of cars nationwide. The latest models capture the last few seconds of data - like vehicle speed, seatbelt use and whether the driver applied the brakes - before a collision.

Such detailed reporting of accidents raises privacy concerns, said experts at Consumers Union, which has filed comments with the federal government warning about possible violations of privacy. Sally Greenberg, senior product safety counsel at Consumers Union, said her group recognized the potential safety benefits of the reporting but wanted the government to "proceed with caution."

People's cars have already started turning their owners in. Scott E. Knight, a California man, was convicted last year for the killing of a Merced, Calif., resident in a March 2001 hit-and-run accident; police tracked him down because the OnStar system in his Chevy Tahoe alerted OnStar when the airbag was set off.

Transportation experts say that if these sensor systems can provide crucial information for emergency aid workers and for vehicle research, lives will be saved. The federal government is considering rules that would standardize the information that black boxes provide, along with ways to gather the information......

.....Last year a small rental car company in New Haven, Acme Rent-a-Car, angered customers by using global positioning to fine them $150 for speeding. The state's department of consumer protection declared the fines illegal - but not the tracking. The company appealed the consumer agency's action, but in July a state judge rejected the appeal.

Ian Ayres of Yale University, a law professor who has examined the issue, predicted that regardless of what happened with Acme, "within a decade all our car insurance companies will be offering us discounts if we will commit to Acme-like contracts - if we agree not to speed." and the use of tracking technology will grow "even if they don't give us a discount," he said, because "all the parents will want these boxes in their cars to know whether their kids are speeding."

In fact, one of the largest insurance companies in the United States, Progressive Auto Insurance, has already tested policies in Texas that tied insurance rates to car usage as monitored by global positioning.

Tires, too, can tell on drivers. This year, Michelin began implanting match-head-sized chips in tires that can be read remotely. The company started using the chips to provide manufacturing information that could help spot failure trends and to comply with a federal law requiring close tracking of tires for recalls. But privacy activists fear that the chips, which can be loaded with a car's vehicle identification number, would allow yet another form of automated vehicle tracking. "You basically have Web browser 'cookies' in your tires," said Richard M. Smith, an independent privacy researcher.

Aviel D. Rubin, the technical director of the Information Security Institute at Johns Hopkins University, said that every new technology with the potential to invade privacy was introduced with pledges that it would be used responsibly.

But over time, he said, the desire of law enforcement and business to use the data overtook the early promises. "The only way to get real privacy," he said, "is not to collect the information in the first place."

This Car Can Talk. What It Says May Cause Concern.

[Tiger Al 0]

"Sometimes it feels like, somebody's watching me." Rockwell

[AUloggerhead 2,356]

....Other information systems being added to cars can be used for tracking as well. Electronic toll systems are convenient for commuters, but the information is increasingly being used to track movements. When police were trying to track the car of Jonathan P. Luna, an assistant United States attorney who was killed earlier this month, they pulled the records of his charges on his E-ZPass account, which led them to Pennsylvania, where his body was found. Such records have also been used in civil cases like child custody disputes

Of all of the new automotive technologies, none presents a more complex set of benefits and risks than the "black box" sensors that have already been placed in millions of cars nationwide. The latest models capture the last few seconds of data - like vehicle speed, seatbelt use and whether the driver applied the brakes - before a collision.

Such detailed reporting of accidents raises privacy concerns, said experts at Consumers Union, which has filed comments with the federal government warning about possible violations of privacy. Sally Greenberg, senior product safety counsel at Consumers Union, said her group recognized the potential safety benefits of the reporting but wanted the government to "proceed with caution."

People's cars have already started turning their owners in. Scott E. Knight, a California man, was convicted last year for the killing of a Merced, Calif., resident in a March 2001 hit-and-run accident; police tracked him down because the OnStar system in his Chevy Tahoe alerted OnStar when the airbag was set off.

Let's see ... the body of a murdered US atty was found and a hit & run driver was arrested due to this technology. The "black box" data has the potential to sort out car accidents & determine which driver was truly at fault -- not to mention it also would prove extremely important in fraudulent claims, which is a nationwide problem that affects all of us that buy insurance and drive responsibly.

Tell me again why these examples are bad?

[Ranger12 46]

Let's see ... the body of a murdered US atty was found and a hit & run driver was arrested due to this technology. The "black box" data has the potential to sort out car accidents & determine which driver was truly at fault -- not to mention it also would prove extremely important in fraudulent claims, which is a nationwide problem that affects all of us that buy insurance and drive responsibly.

Tell me again why these examples are bad?

Exactly! I was trying to figure out what the negative point of the article was. We must remember one thing, driving is not a right, but a privilege. Those boxes are in airplanes, so why not cars? Same principle to me.