Traffic Camera Companies Looking To Give Gov't More Ways To Spy On You As You Drive

from the you-have-no-privacy-anywhere dept

Thu, Sep 18th 2008 10:44pm — Mike Masnick

There's been plenty of backlash against red light cameras (which often increase the number of accidents) and speed cameras (which seem to have problems with accuracy). However, that's not stopping the manufacturers of those cameras from trying to get governments to buy even more of them for other purposes. A few folks have sent in a story from TheNewspaper (a site that actively fights against the spread of traffic-related cameras), noting that the two big firms in the space are pitching the cameras to governments for surveillance purposes, to keep records and data on motorists. They talk about using it to recognize license plates on stolen cars, but you can imagine it's only a matter of time until it also puts together a nice database on where you traveled when. It's yet another step towards proving the saying that you no longer have any privacy anywhere. At least not from the government. Maybe next up, they'll look to just put cameras directly in your cars, like some taxis have these days. That way they can track what you're saying as well.

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Filed Under: cameras, driving, surveillance

35 Comments

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Verse, 19 Sep 2008 @ 12:05am

Privacy Vs Security
As the subject title suggests, isn't it always a constant battle about finding a happy medium for privacy Vs security ... on one hand if someone stole my car it would be traceable, OTOH I don't want to have my movements traced, not that I have anything to hide, but none-the-less; it's none of your business.

Can anybody say 'catch 22?'
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- Anonymous Coward, 19 Sep 2008 @ 5:50am
  
  Re: Privacy Vs Security
  It's a false dichotomy. You can be secure without sacrificing your privacy. A dumb example of what I mean is the case of a deadbolt lock -- if you have the key, you have security and privacy, but if the government has the key then you have neither.
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- Comboman, 19 Sep 2008 @ 6:58am
  
  Re: Privacy Vs Security
  As the subject title suggests, isn't it always a constant battle about finding a happy medium for privacy Vs security ... on one hand if someone stole my car it would be traceable
  I you want your car to be traceable if it's stolen then YOU should do something about (LoJack, OnStar, etc) instead of forcing EVERYONE to be spied on whether they like it or not (and paying for it through their taxes). Your car is not more valuable than my freedom. Besides, a criminal can easily defeat this tracking system by switching plates, law-abiding citizens can't (which makes you wonder who this system is really designed to track).
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Spectere, 19 Sep 2008 @ 12:16am

Tracing Your Movements
The technology for tracing where a person goes is already being implemented, albeit in an opt-in fashion. You guys should look up Nielsen Outdoor one of these days.

It's basically a little GPS device from Nielsen Media Research (the company that does the national TV ratings, among other things) that follows you wherever you go, metering your exposure to billboards and such. Not only that, but it is apparently advanced enough to follow people though cities.

Imagine what it would be like if those things ever matured to the point where they became standard equipment on cars. That'd be plenty of incentive for me to start biking more, that's for sure.
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- Bunny, 19 Sep 2008 @ 12:24am
  
  Re: Tracing Your Movements
  If you are carrying a cell phone, you are also being tracked that way.
  
  Time to go to a costume shop and get one of those funny fake noses with glasses and a moustache.
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- Dave, 19 Sep 2008 @ 5:38am
  
  Re: Tracing Your Movements
  I'm not sure what your point is.
  
  You volunteer for this tracking to help Nielsen create ratings for outdoor advertising. Why are you assuming this is some insidious plot to put GPS units in cars to track your movements.
  
  Don't enough cars come with GPS mapping units installed that you should look at that with paranoia?
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  - Spectere, 20 Sep 2008 @ 3:07am
    
    Re: Re: Tracing Your Movements
    I'm well aware of how Nielsen works and what their selection methods are; I used to work for them. I also made no such assumptions.
    
    My point was kind of moot, I suppose. The main reason that Nielsen's system stuck out in my head in comparison to on-car systems is because I've had more exposure to them (I don't really know of any non-GM cars with a bidirectional GPS-type system like OnStar, though I believe Ford has been rolling one out). That, and the very idea that such a tiny device is so frighteningly accurate (we're talking something the size of a cell phone that's generally more accurate than your average consumer-grade GPS) kind of bothers me.
    
    Sure, you can approximate the position of a given cell phone user any time that the phone is off, but that's only accurate to the cell that the user is in, not to the slab of concrete that's under the person's feet.
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jFive, 19 Sep 2008 @ 1:59am

The only reason every human isn't tracked is because it would blow the lid off so much s#@t that goes on in Washington. The govt would wind up being its own whistleblower.

Could you imagine if every Congressman was tracked 24/7? The country would crumble.
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- UK Sux - I REALLY need to leave, 19 Sep 2008 @ 2:49am
  
  @ jFive
  Well m8, if its anything like the UK government they will be EXEMPT !
  
  We have a Children`s Database, Unless of course you are a politician in which case their children are EXEMPT.
  
  We are due to have a National ID card that we all be required to carry. This carries DNA, Fingerprints, whatever they can get away with, unless of course you are a politician then you are EXEMPT.
  
  Starting to see a pattern here ?
  
  REMEMBER: Nothing to hide, nothing to fear
  
  Roll on 1984
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- Brad Eleven, 19 Sep 2008 @ 4:49am
  
  Re:
  See also drug testing.
  
  "Reading out the figures in a shrill, rapid voice, he proved to them in detail that they had more oats, more hay, more turnips than they had had in Jones's day, that they worked shorter hours, that their drinking water was of better quality, that they lived longer, that a larger proportion of their young ones survived infancy, and that they had more straw in their stalls and suffered less from fleas."
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Frogpond, 19 Sep 2008 @ 3:39am

Does The Good Outweigh The Bad
Video surveillance and dbase tracking can serve society well if properly used. In upstate NY a college-aged miscreant decided to teach his parents a lesson by chopping them up with an axe. The combination of a parking lot camera and the NY State Thruway EZ-Pass data base helped put the brat behind bars. OTOH you can be sure that this is the exception. Like the patriot act, these surveillance methods will certainly be misused by government agencies, suspicious spouses,etc. to spy on private citizens. Camera speed traps and red-light watching devices were the natural extension of our general acceptance RADAR and LASER speed traps. Video at ATMs and convenience stores will evolve into video everywhere. Toll transponders can be tracked from any point on the highway.

"They are out there and they are watching."
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- Vincent Clement, 19 Sep 2008 @ 5:44am
  
  Re: Does The Good Outweigh The Bad
  It's not a question about the good outweighing the bad. It's about the government 'keeping an eye' on us and then abusing that 'eye'.
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  - Anonymous Coward, 19 Sep 2008 @ 5:53am
    
    Re: Re: Does The Good Outweigh The Bad
    Well, abusing us. The eye is probably unmolested.
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Nappy Rash Cream, 19 Sep 2008 @ 4:19am

The end is nigh
I work in technology and speeding will be out of the question within 10 years
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Anonymous Coward, 19 Sep 2008 @ 4:46am

Could be here already
I have noticed that around the US the states have put in "car counters" on most major roads. I am sure these pads already track the speed of traffic as there are two grids in each lane. I am not sure how much more it would take to use them with rfid tags on license plates.
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Merijn Vogel, 19 Sep 2008 @ 4:54am

Trajectory speed metering
In the Netherlands we have several roads where speed is verfied over a long trajectory. Take three miles of road with no exits, put numberplate-readers at the beginning and the end, and the software can easlily and (very) accurately compute your average speed.
And as a side-effect check those numberplates for other interesting side-information: like the number of traffic-tickets unpaid, whether the numberplate belongs to a vehicle which has been stolen etc.
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- Anonymous Coward, 19 Sep 2008 @ 5:30am
  
  Re: Trajectory speed metering
  What if you drive real slow ?
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  - Anonymous Coward, 19 Sep 2008 @ 5:55am
    
    Re: Re: Trajectory speed metering
    What, just in general or to lower your average. Either way, aren't you defeating the purpose of speeding if you, uhm, don't speed?
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buckminster futt, 19 Sep 2008 @ 5:23am

video cams might be an opportunity for some creative fun
Ya know the aphorism when someone has a glass of water...

Is the glass have full? or Is it half empty?

Who gives a s#@t? Pick the glass up and splash water on everybody and cool off!

So whenever the Authorities install a video cameras, arrange a flash-crowd and tell people to bring laser pointers, paint ball guns, water balloons with ink, old fashion cans of spray paint to trash the camera, the lens or CCD chip.

And of course everyone shows up in costume. Or naked.

When I see situations where our basic civil liberties are being trampled by elected thugs, I ask myself this simple question:

"What would Wavy Gravy do?!!" LOL

buck

When we were kids, we were taught to: "Respect authority"
As teenagers, we realized we should: "Question authority"
We were wrong - the correct response: "Fu*k Authority!"
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- Tony, 19 Sep 2008 @ 8:34am
  
  Re: video cams might be an opportunity for some creative fun
  How, exactly, does one "arrange" a flash-crowd?
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  - buckminster futt, 19 Sep 2008 @ 11:46am
    
    Re: Re: video cams might be an opportunity for some creative fun
    > How, exactly, does one "arrange" a flash-crowd?
    
    Author Larry Niven originated the term to describe a situation where a bunch of folks teleport to the same place at the same time via a plot device that used quantum entanglement or some other literary magic.
    
    I used the phrase to describe a political protest. Using SMS, email, drums, etc the activists leaders "arrange" for group members to all meet at a time and place to carry out some form of performance art. The event happens on short notice so as to undermine any attempt at sabotage. The group members also need to dissolve into the crowd of bystanders to hide their ID from the government.
    
    (The phrase also describes a overwhelming burst of traffic on Internet sites that have some newsworthy event or attraction or when the site's URL is posted on slashdot.)
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Joe, 19 Sep 2008 @ 5:52am

Re: Does the Good Outweigh the Bad
The 2nd Amendment allows you to carry a gun to shoot at traffic cameras.
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- Anonymous Coward, 19 Sep 2008 @ 5:56am
  
  Re: Re: Does the Good Outweigh the Bad
  You will then be charged with destruction of federal property. Good luck with that.
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MAtt, 19 Sep 2008 @ 6:02am

creepy
I wonder if the sci-fi writers who thought this stuff up decades ago ever wondered if their own prescient works of fiction really would become reality. And I wonder how much of this reality was actually inspired by that very fiction?
Instead of restricting government we should burn all sci-fi books and make illegal any kind of "futuristic" writing.
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Overcast, 19 Sep 2008 @ 6:25am

Big Brother Is Watching You.
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Benjamin Wright, 19 Sep 2008 @ 7:51am

documented lives
In 1995 Bill Gates predicted we would come to live "documented lives," where our every move and action is digitally recorded. One implication: privacy erodes. Another implication: power shifts away from traditional authority figures. --Ben http://hack-igations.blogspot.com/2007/12/people-in-authority-sometimes-abuse.html
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You never know, 19 Sep 2008 @ 8:16am

It's just one more step towards living in the "Informational Fishbowl". If you have any drought try goggling a few of your friends names, you'll be amazed at what you find.
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- buckminster futt, 19 Sep 2008 @ 12:21pm
  
  Re: "Informational Fishbowl" experience
  Check this out:
  
  In 1975(!) I took a comp. sci. class where the professor actually made everyone write a "term paper" on the topic of privacy. The professor dude was way ahead on this subject.
  
  In my paper, I wrote how our notion of privacy would become what it was like if/when we lived in a small town or went to a small school. I had some direct experience with this when I attended an 800 student college where everyone knew what everybody else was up to...
  
  Now that might not sound so bad but if you're a sociopathic scoundrel doing nefarious deeds (such as myself) then this social "fishbowl" situation totally sucks. My solution? Stifle my natural, overt anti-social behavior so no one suspected the evil degenerate that lurked within... ;-)
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wasnt me!, 19 Sep 2008 @ 8:19am

why not just implant RFID chips in every body when they reach a certain age?
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- Agonizing Fury, 19 Sep 2008 @ 8:31am
  
  Re:
  Hell, why not at birth, that way if your child is kidnapped, the various RFID trackers could locate your child as they pass by. Common guys, it's not to track you as an adult "It's for the kids" /sarcasm
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  - wasnt me!, 19 Sep 2008 @ 9:09am
    
    Re: Re:
    how could I not think of the children
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Anonymous Coward, 19 Sep 2008 @ 11:48am

nothing a nicely placed paint balloon wont fix. Use latex, will have to do it again if it rains, but when you get caught, there will be no actual damages to lower the charges they place on you.
:|
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Lucretious, 20 Sep 2008 @ 4:25am

but...but....if you have nothing hide....
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Dirty Plate, 20 Sep 2008 @ 8:32am

Clean Plate
I remember reading an article about fake mud in a spray can being outlawed in the UK. Another example of cleaver individuals playing with silly schemes.
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uk Car tracker, 10 Jul 2012 @ 2:46am

suaccs
It to recognize license plates on stolen cars, but you can imagine it's only a matter of time until it also puts together a nice database on where you traveled when. It's yet another step towards proving the saying that you no longer have any privacy anywhere.
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