Police cars today have cameras that can scan the license places on every car they see. Plate numbers are transmitted to a central computer and if a number is flagged as wanted in any way, the police in the cruiser get an alert and they can pull the car over. That sounds reassuring but it also represents a potentially serious invasion of privacy.
Compared with this, privacy concerns over such things as self-driving cars or VMT pricing seem tame. Yet conservatives manage to freak out over potential invasions of privacy by Google’s self-driving car as well as by proposals for VMT pricing.
Let’s get this straight. There is nothing about self-driving cars that are potentially an invasion of people’s privacy. Unlike police cars, the cars do not report to nor are they monitored by some central computer, Instead, all the electronics is on board the car. While some car systems being designed today could invade people’s privacy, the systems used to enable cars to drive themselves are not among them.
VMT pricing could invade people’s privacy if it were designed to do so. But the people who’ve designed pilot programs are sensitive to privacy concerns and so they’ve designed the systems so that no invasion of privacy is possible. Whatever devices are used to collect fees do not even keep track of where people go, so no one would have the opportunity to ever find out.
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Update: Here’s another one. “The marriage of computerized car control and wireless communications will lead to the creation of the Mobility Grid (in the context of cities, the catch phrase is ‘Smart Cities’),” it says. “The Mobility Grid will become a national, state-operated, computer network that will be used to achieve an Orwellian level of vehicular control and information sharing.”
Let’s get this straight. Self-driving cars and inter-auto wifi communications (known as “vehicle-to-vehicle” or V2V communications) are two completely different things. Private companies like Google are promoting self-driving cars. Government agencies are promoting V2V. Google’s car does not need or expect to have V2V.
The auto industry has no faith that government will ever implement the infrastructure needed for V2V communications (or its partner, vehicle-to-infrastructure or V2I communications). The self-driving car model envisions no Orwellian central computer controlling everything. Instead, developers of self-driving cars have put everything on board the car itself. To a self-driving car, another car is just one more obstacle to be avoided, whether that other car is driven by a computer or a human. In this scenario, V2V is superfluous.
Privacy advocates might have a reason to worry about V2V. That doesn’t mean they have a reason to worry about self-driving cars.
There’s an old rule from Gibb’s from NCIS. “Never be out of reach”.
Privacy aside there are far more pressing concerns in regards to privacy rights than police tracking automobiles, that’s more of a local thing and good thing if your car is stolen. We have more pressing issues such as drones and whether or not the government will be flying these things over residential neighborhoods. Or unsolicited wiretapping of domestic residences without a warrant. And stand in opposition to the US House Resolution 1955, arguing that it “focuses the weight of the US government inward toward its own citizens under the guise of protecting us against violent radicalization” which is a fancy way of generalizing groups that may be critical of the government. Namely the Associated Press recent controversy regarding it’s phone records seized. Or the more recent scandal that the IRS was performing politically motivated probing of conservative organizations.
“The Antiplanner is probably not as concerned about privacy as some people. But those who are concerned about it should carefully examine new technologies to see whether they truly could invade people’s privacy before they object to them.”
Privacy? Please. Thanks to government, privacy simply doesn’t exist.
If you own your property, thanks to property taxes being “public information,” you have no privacy. People can access online government-published parcel viewers that reveal intimate details about property, including the square footage, floor plans, photos, value, tax bills, etc.
Due to income taxes, there is no financial privacy as subjects are required to tell the state intimate details about their finances and wealth.
Marriage licenses, divorce decrees, business licenses, records regarding incorporation. Government invasion of privacy knows no bounds; privacy is an illusion.
VMT pricing could invade people’s privacy if it were designed to do so. But the people who’ve designed pilot programs are sensitive to privacy concerns and so they’ve designed the systems so that no invasion of privacy is possible.
Yes. And IRS regulations are drawn up to eliminate any consideration of ideology or political affiliation. There is a wall — a wall, I tell you, between the state and the individual. It’s designed to be that way.
I find the AntiPlanner’s insouciance remarkable in this case.
I agree that the Antiplanner has a deaf ear to legitimate privacy concerns. The technologies can be designed to protect privacy, but they won’t be unless privacy concerns are heard and considered.
Today many movies and TV shows have plots where all cameras and electronic information is linked and searchable and controllable, so that someone with a computer can find, spy on, and control everything someone does that involves electronics. Obviously that is not reality today, but it is a fictional hint of what might be possible if everything is linked with no concerns about privacy.
One key is to not let everything get connected. Then courts must approve subpeonas, and it takes a lot of effort, to connect the different sources. Thus traffic cams, ATM cameras, police cams, and online activity is hard to coordinate, but is possible when very important such as for a murder investigation.
Anyone interested should see the movie Minority Report. Where privacy and essentially free will in the 21st century is a precious thing and called into question. The police appear heavily militarized. Wearing thick body armor on a day to day basis. To find offenders, they throw dozens of little spider robots to scan people from inside their own homes with no more than a warning than a warrant. Retina scanners are everywhere including Washington Metro and inside of stores where accounts are set to ones names.. Holographic televisions consume an entire wall converting the tranquility of the living room into a rush of advirtising. And holographic advirtisements blurt out your name in the middle of the night. The personalized advertising is disconcerting partly because of the invasion of privacy but because it’s cold, impersonal and insincere. To some it’s just some Spielberg, blockbuster where Tom Cruise spends 2 hours running, but it’s one of the most oddly disturbing films recently made.
More news on this topic:
Student’s self-driving car tech wins Intel science fair
When self-driving cars reach the masses, thanks may be due to a 19-year-old high-school student from Romania who developed an artificial intelligence that slashes the cost of the technology. He took top prize — a $75,000 scholarship — Friday at an international science and engineering fair.
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The high-resolution 3-D radar used by Google, he noted, costs about $75,000. His whole system should work for no more $4,000.
The AI/robotics are indeed interesting, but realize the direction is something “Terminator” like when cars, trucks, fork lifts, etc can drive them selves.
This is all very post-humanist.
One thing I don’t understand about the self-driving cars. I can see how they would change parking lots since the cars could drop off and pick up people while parking itself far away. But how does it change highways and bridge capacity? If every car was driven by a computer, then I can see greater density. But if even a few human driven cars are mixed in with the robot cars, then would it really increase density?
Folks, the public highway network is just that – public (regardless of who or what owns or maintains any given segment of the network).
You have some expectation of privacy regarding the inside of your vehicle, but not the exterior (including the vehicle registration number).