Land of the coward and home of the slave
Gov't cameras in your car? E-toll patent hints at Big Brotherish future
By Bob Sullivan
MSNBC
Patent application number: 20110161140
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.
It's important to note that a patent filing is a far cry from the invention and manufacturing of a new product. Many patent filings are nothing more than a defensive measure taken to protect the farthest reaches of intellectual property. Officials at Kapsch declined to be interviewed for this story, but in a statement said that citizens shouldn't read too much into the filing.
“This patent filing is part of the standard intellectual property protection process followed by every company that invests in research and development," said Erwin Toplak, chief operating officer of Kapsch, in an e-mail. "Kapsch, for example, files approximately 20 patent applications a year. This process protects our unique ideas; it does not signify that a commercial product is in development or even contemplated .”
And P.J. Wilkins, executive director of the E-Z Pass Group consortium that manages the massive toll collection cooperative, said he hadn't even heard of camera technology when told about the patent by msnbc.com.
"It's not an upgrade we are working on here," said. "We just signed a long-term contract with them and this wasn't a requirement."
Enforcement of HOV and HOT lanes is a labor-intensive and expensive issue for many state agencies, he said, and he understood why a company like Kapsch would try to invent a technology to deal with the problem, But he said he couldn't imagine it being used in the E-Z Pass system.
"Before anyone goes down that road there's a whole host of questions that would have to be answered,” he said. “What's the impact on privacy? What's the impact on the data stream? I just don't think it's something that would gain a lot of traction."
Kapsch sells its technology in 41 countries around the globe, and 64 million cars worldwide have been outfitted with its transponders, according to the firm's website. Occupant cameras could be attractive, and more acceptable, outside the U.S.
And while it's possible cameras-in-cars technology would be a non-starter in America, that doesn't mean Americans shouldn't be worried, said Lee Tien, a privacy expert with the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
"I think (drivers) should be pretty concerned," he said. "You want to make sure any use of that technology is very carefully regulated. People should let the E-Z Pass folks know now what they think about any possible plans to introduce cameras in their cars, now, while it's being developed, rather than before it's already a fait accompli, and some agency says it's already spent millions on it and can't turn back now."
Tien said there's nothing inherently bad about using new technology to enforce tolls, but he cautioned against what is sometimes called "surveillance spillover." Technology designed for one function is inevitably used by law enforcement officials and other government agencies in unintended ways.
"You could imagine that they could limit the capacity of devices -- say the images would be destroyed after a very short period of time -- so it would not be as powerful a surveillance device. But that's not the general dynamic," he said. "Once you have the device out there, someone says, 'Why not use it for this, or that.' That's usually where the battle between privacy and other social goals is lost."
The dynamic is playing out right now in a European scandal surrounding use of a secret government program used by German law enforcement officials to monitor citizens' Internet behavior through the use of Trojan horse software called R2D2. German courts had permitted use of the software only when officials were fulfilling a legal wiretap order, and only to listen in on Skype conversations. But the R2D2 Trojan has allegedly been used by German authorities to send thousands of screen shots detailing suspects' Internet explorations, to keylog their typing, and in a host of other potentially illegal evidence-gathering methods.
The solution, says Tien, is to design privacy right into the gadget in the first place, to minimize the inevitable temptations for law enforcement and security officials.
"It doesn't bother me that (Kapsch) filed this patent. Surveillance technology is constantly being developed. There is money in surveillance," he said. "The question is less about lamenting the invention of these things and more about questioning our demand for surveillance, and thinking about the kind of society we are building and encouraging when we legitimize the continual, gradual architecting of the social world into a surveillance society."
News of the camera patents comes as electronic toll collection continues to expand around the U.S. -- and while options for using the systems anonymously have finally become commonplace. After years of complaints from skeptics that E-Z Pass toll paying created an undesirable public record that could be used to track individuals, systems in Texas and Washington state now allow users to register for the devices without disclosing their identities. And a new "E-Z Pass On the Go" gadget is being sold in the Eastern U.S. that functions much like a disposable prepaid phone card, allowing anonymous use of the E-Z Pass tolls.
E-Z Pass has had to beat back a lot of conspiracy theories through the years, Wilkins noted -- such as the idea that the gadgets would be used to catch speeders and issue tickets. E-Z Pass users now register very few complaints, he said, and are overwhelmingly happy with a system that helps them avoid delays at long toll booth lines.
"The whole tracking thing is a bogus argument," said Wilkins. "If you have a cell phone you are being tracked anyway. Law enforcement can get to cell phone records just as easily (as E-Z Pass records). And the phone company keeps that data a very long time."
Boy racers beware: your parents are watching
By Anna Gizowska in Sydney and David Harrison
Daily Telegraph
14 Aug 2005
It's bad news for boy racers: Big Brother is watching you - and so are your parents on a new in-car video camera that records how motorists drive.
The palm-sized device, to be launched in Britain this month, is fixed to the windscreen beneath the rear-view mirror and captures any dangerous or erratic driving. Parents can then download the colour footage onto a computer to see - and hear - how their children behave behind the wheel.
The £1,000 camera, which is being compared to the "black box" used on airliners to record flight details, was invented by an Australian, developed in the United States and has been approved for sale in Britain.
So far the device, called DriveCam, has been used mainly by fleet car companies who use it to monitor their drivers and to provide evidence for insurance claims, but the makers are also planning to market the camera as a "car nanny".
Gary Rayner, who invented the camera after reading about the car crash that killed Diana, Princess of Wales, and the lack of information about the moments leading up to her death, said: "It's an ideal way to keep an eye on the kids' driving. Parents, like fleet managers, can see bad driving behaviour before it turns into accidents and give their children advice."
More than 3,000 people die on British roads every year and a quarter of the victims are drivers aged between 17 and 25. Mr Rayner says that the device will save lives. It has reduced road deaths in America, where it has been fitted in 30,000 fleet vehicles, he said.
The camera, which also has a red "panic button" to capture incidents such as muggings or road rage attacks, records sights and sounds inside and outside the car continuously but "saves" footage only when there is a "trigger incident". These include excessive speed, sharp cornering, hard braking or accelerating, and going over bumps. The camera saves footage 15 seconds either side of each incident.
A spokesman for the Institute of Advanced Motoring said: "It's early days yet but we have endorsed this product because we believe it can make a contribution to road safety."
Parents welcomed it too. Jeff Joyce, who runs an insurance business in East Sheen, south-west London, and has an 18-year-old son who has been driving for a year, said: "It can only be a good thing if it helps young drivers to be a bit more aware of how important it is to drive safely.
"It also gives the parents more sway over the children because if they have evidence of bad driving they can stop the kids using the car and make them pay for any damage."
The prospect of being filmed, however, horrified his son James who has had two crashes since he passed his test. "It would be terrible," he said. "If my mum and dad were to see a film of me driving I don't think they would let me drive again.
"I suppose it could help you with an insurance claim, but I don't think any teenager or other young driver would want their driving to be captured on film."
In Australia, where 350 people aged 17 to 25 die on the roads and 5,500 are seriously injured each year, the device is being used to improve teenagers' driving.
Gene Corbett, the director of Total Driver, a driving school in Queensland, recently carried out a three-month study of 40 young drivers with DriveCam fitted in their cars and found many dangerous flaws in their driving because of their lack of experience.
"We give them a few lessons then put them in charge of a car at legal speeds of up to 110 kilometres an hour, with little or no education or coaching and expect them to learn the rest by experience, which is ludicrous," he said.
Mr Corbett's assessment and coaching reduced "trigger incidents" by up to 80 per cent and most of the drivers said the study had made then drive more cautiously.
Smile For The Camera: Big Brother Is Watching You Speed Via Satellite
TheCarConnection.com
April 27, 2010
Satellites do many awesome things: they allow us to communicate with friends and family, they help us find our way home when we're lost, and of course, they bring us television -- delicious television. But there are a few downsides to those hunks of metal and circuitry floating above the surface of the earth, and for drivers in Britain, one of those downsides is now speed traps.
In London and Cornwall, a pilot program has just been launched that combines all the fun of terrestrial speed cameras with the creepy omniscience of GPS. In a nutshell, the program -- called "SpeedSpike" -- uses positioning satellites to track motorists as they travel between traffic cameras. By calculating the time it takes a driver to move from one point to the other, SpeedSpike can determine whether or not the motorist has been speeding. When the car reaches the second camera, calculations are made, and if they're out of line -- blammo! -- a photo is taken of the license plate, and a ticket is mailed to the owner.
Obviously, this is terrible news for leadfooters. Garden-variety traffic cameras are confined to a particular area: if you're not driving by one, it can't give you a ticket. But SpeedSpike allows the camera system to expand exponentially, with far less on-the-ground hardware. As long as you drive past two cameras, your speed can be measured and you can potentially receive a citation. Taken to its logical extreme, the British government could roll out enough camera checkpoints to cover the entire nation.
And just because this is happening in Britain doesn't mean that those of us in North America can relax: the company behind SpeedSpike, PIPS Technology, is based in Knoxville, Tennessee. Not to get all survivalist or anything, but: yikes.
Of course, the real problem with SpeedSpike goes beyond overbearing traffic enforcement: SpeedSpike opens the door to serious breaches of individual privacy. It's hard to argue that anything as illegal and dangerous as speeding is a-okay, so SpeedSpike itself is, in theory, justifiable. But the jump from traffic enforcement to more insidious applications is a short and easy one.
Unfortunately, just like cell phones, in-car internet, and Lunchables, the genie is out of the bottle on this brand of technology. PIPS's pilot program might fail for any number of reasons -- political, logistical, or otherwise -- but the idea is there, and the technology is there, so our guess is that the service itself will eventually be there in some form or other. As drivers (and voters), we need to make sure it rolls out in a way that ensures safety while also respecting the privacy of individuals.
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