Black Boxes as Ankle Monitors

Since Toyota’s quality control problems, the United States now wants every car to carry a “black box” trip recorder. This is supposed to increase safety; in fact, this is a calculated attack on individual liberty and the individual’s last private retreat — his or her car. The only beneficiaries will be big business.

Taking a quick trip past the beach during working hours? EDR will make a note of it. Nobody saw you run that red light? The EDR did. Having a quick private rendezvous after office hours? EDR will gladly rat you out. The EDR, or Event Data Recorder, will be your car’s own “black box” that sees all, knows all and records all. Since Toyota’s brake problems, U.S. agencies are now considering making the data recorders mandatory in all cars, using the excuse that they will increase traffic safety.

What safety? The data recorders can’t prevent accidents; all they can do is record them after they happen. They’re already standard equipment for several American car manufacturers — Ford, for example. To be politically correct, Ford’s EDR permanently overwrites the data it records if the car isn’t involved in an accident. But in theory, at least, it could easily be programmed to do otherwise, in which case the EDR would become an electronic ankle bracelet, permanently watching every move the driver makes. If the U.S. government follows through with this plan, it will have grave consequences for individual freedom. The EDR would destroy an individual’s last private refuge, his or her car. And who would profit from that? Mostly insurance companies, car rental agencies, fleet operators and, of course, the companies that make those little black boxes.

But when profits are involved, don’t count on the industry’s conscience to prevent them from manipulating those little black boxes.