Privacy Experts Shun Black Boxes (electronic data recorders now mandatory in all cars)
FoxNews ^ | Nov. 11, 2004 | Kelley Beaucar Vlahos
 

Some safety and privacy experts are reacting with apprehension, others with all out condemnation over a recent ruling by the National Transportation Safety Board to require electronic data recorders or "black boxes" in all new cars manufactured in the United States.

"I take offense that this personal property of individuals is now being designed by the federal government," said Jim Harper, privacy attorney and editor of Privacilla.org.

EDRs are certainly not new. Information gathered on black boxes — typically everything from speed, brake pressure, seat belt use and air bag deployment — has already been used in determining guilt in criminal and civil cases across the country.

Privacy experts warn that once cars are outfitted for the most limited data recording, the government will find a way to argue it’s for drivers’ "own good" to collect more. They point to a push in recent years to install GPS in all cars so that emergency officials can easily find incapacitated accident victims.

"When you are telling someone it is for their own good, then it should be their own choice, they should be able to say ‘no,’" said professor Yale Kamisar of the University of Michigan Law School. "None of these things work out the way they are supposed to. Why should we believe all of these assurances when they haven’t been honored in the past?"
 

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