The US and UK Want Black Box Recorders in Cars to Spy on Citizens

Susanne Posel
Occupy Corporatism
May 4, 2012

 

 

 

 

Senate Bill 1813, “Mandatory Event Data Recorders”, a.k.a. MAP-21, is the “Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act”. It is championed by Harry Reid and Barbara Boxer.

The bill states that: “Not later than 180 days after the date of enactment of this Act, the Secretary shall revise part 563 of title 49, Code of Federal Regulations, to require, beginning with model year 2015, that new passenger motor vehicles sold in the United States be equipped with an event data recorder that meets the requirements under that part.”

The data recorder would be property of the owner of the car; however the government would have complete access to the data inside under specific circumstances such as court order. The Secretary of Transpiration would be charged with extracting the data through investigation or inspection.

In the UK , the Transportation Secretary, Justine Greening, suggests that cars be fitted with black box recorders to reduce sky-high insurance premiums by as much as half.

These recording devices will be able to measure speed, braking, acceleration, cornering and the time of day of a motorist’s journey.

Greenings answer to increased insurance costs in a “wider use of the technology” that will reduce accidents and lower insurance premiums.

Greening commented that, “the Government has already taken tough action to ban referral fees, reform no-win no-fee rules and crack down on fraudulent whiplash claims. But I think we can go further. Why is it, when the overwhelming majority of UK young drivers are amongst the safest in the world and we are seeing faster reductions in casualties for this age group than for all drivers as a whole, that premiums are still sky high? There is no getting away from it: the cost of car insurance is bearing increasingly little relationship to the real world.”

Amy Kilmartin, of the Co-operative Insurance corporations believes that, “we can see that motorists with this type of insurance are genuinely driving better than those without it.”

Anaylisis of insurance rates and the promises of the black box recorders suggest that telematics or “black box insurance” would be 20% less likely to be involved in a traffic accident.

Just like in America, the UK government is attempting to coerce their citizens into having a black box recorder installed into their cars.
This is a gross violation of personal privacy.

It appears to be justifiable enough for Congress to deem this bill appropriate; as well as in the UK for the Transportation Secretary to be speaking in praise of them.

Yet, allowing any government to spy on its citizens is highly unnecessary. And its demand is only a cover to mask the extent to which big brother will be allowed to infiltrate our private lives.

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