E-tracking, coming to a DMV near you [DOT wants to track your car wherever it goes]

CNet News ^ | Dec 5, 2005 | Declan McCullagh

[John Jorsett]

Trust federal bureaucrats to take a good idea and transform it into a frightening proposal to track Americans wherever they drive.

The U.S. Department of Transportation has been handing millions of dollars to state governments for GPS-tracking pilot projects designed to track vehicles wherever they go. So far, Washington state and Oregon have received fat federal checks to figure out how to levy these "mileage-based road user fees."

Now electronic tracking and taxing may be coming to a DMV near you. The Office of Transportation Policy Studies, part of the Federal Highway Administration, is about to announce another round of grants totaling some $11 million. A spokeswoman on Friday said the office is "shooting for the end of the year" for the announcement, and more money is expected for GPS (Global Positioning System) tracking efforts.

In principle, the idea of what bureaucrats like to call "value pricing" for cars makes sound economic sense.

No policy bans police from automatically sending out speeding tickets based on what the GPS data say.

Airlines and hotels have long charged less for off-peak use. Toll roads would be more efficient--in particular, less congested--if they could follow the same model and charge virtually nothing in the middle of the night but high prices during rush hour.

That price structure would encourage drivers to take public transportation, use alternate routes, or leave earlier or later in the day.

The problem, though, is that these "road user fee" systems are being designed and built in a way that strips drivers of their privacy and invites constant surveillance by police, the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security.

Zero privacy protections
Details of the tracking systems vary. But the general idea is that a small GPS device, which knows its location by receiving satellite signals, is placed inside the vehicle.

Some GPS trackers constantly communicate their location back to the state DMV, while others record the location information for later retrieval. (In the Oregon pilot project, it's beamed out wirelessly when the driver pulls into a gas station.)

The problem, though, is that no privacy protections exist. No restrictions prevent police from continually monitoring, without a court order, the whereabouts of every vehicle on the road.

No rule prohibits that massive database of GPS trails from being subpoenaed by curious divorce attorneys, or handed to insurance companies that might raise rates for someone who spent too much time at a neighborhood bar. No policy bans police from automatically sending out speeding tickets based on what the GPS data say.

The Fourth Amendment provides no protection. The U.S. Supreme Court said in two cases, U.S. v. Knotts and U.S. v. Karo, that Americans have no reasonable expectation of privacy when they're driving on a public street.

The PR offensive
Even more shocking are additional ideas that bureaucrats are hatching. A report prepared by a Transportation Department-funded program in Washington state says the GPS bugs must be made "tamper proof" and the vehicle should be disabled if the bugs are disconnected.

"This can be achieved by building in connections to the vehicle ignition circuit so that failure to receive a moving GPS signal after some default period of vehicle operation indicates attempts to defeat the GPS antenna," the report says.

It doesn't mention the worrisome scenario of someone driving a vehicle with a broken GPS bug--and an engine that suddenly quits half an hour later. But it does outline a public relations strategy (with "press releases and/or editorials" at a "very early stage") to persuade the American public that this kind of contraption would be, contrary to common sense, in their best interest. #textCarousel { width: 140px; border-color: #630; border-width: 2px; border-style: solid; padding: 10px; float: right; margin: 15px 0 15px 15px; background-image: url(/i/ne05/fmwk/greyfadeback.jpg); background-repeat: no-repeat; background-position: -150px top; } <p>#textCarousel li { font-size: 95%; line-height: 1em; margin-bottom: 10px; } <p>#textCarousel h4 { margin: 0 0 5px 0; font-size: 110%; }

One study prepared for the Transportation Department predicts a PR success. "Less than 7 percent of the respondents expressed concerns about recording their vehicle's movements," it says.

That whiff of victory, coupled with a windfall of new GPS-enabled tax dollars, has emboldened DMV bureaucrats. A proposal from the Oregon DMV, also funded by the Transportation Department, says that such a tracking system should be mandatory for all "newly purchased vehicles and newly registered vehicles."

The sad reality is that there are ways to perform "value pricing" for roads while preserving anonymity. You could pay cash for prepaid travel cards, like store gift cards, that would be debited when read by roadside sensors. Computer scientists have long known how to create electronic wallets--using a technique called blind signatures--that can be debited without privacy concerns.

The Transportation Department could require privacy-protective features when handing out grants for pilot projects that may eventually become mandatory. It's now even more important because a new U.S. law ups the size of the grants; the U.K. is planning GPS tracking and per-mile fees ranging between 3 cents and $2.

We'll see. But given the privacy hostility that the Transportation Department and state DMVs have demonstrated so far, don't be too optimistic.

Biography

Declan McCullagh is CNET News.com's Washington, D.C., correspondent. He chronicles the busy intersection between technology and politics. Before that, he worked for several years as Washington bureau chief for Wired News. He has also worked as a reporter for The Netly News, Time magazine and HotWired.

[sure_fine]

would this be like when the telegraph was invented?
it worked both ways, send information for the good guys, but hacked into bad the bad guys

[dufekin]

There's an easy way to keep streets generally free of congestion. It doesn't involve taxing drivers who prefer to drive home immediately after work rather than waiting a few hours for the tolls to decrease to an affordable level. This even easier method of controlling congestion involves constructing enough infrastructure to accommodate traffic. I recognize the novelty of this concept to many liberals, but when we tried it decades ago, it actually worked, much to the chagrin of the view shed of the highly endangered (in those days) enviro-wackos.

[1066AD]

UK is doing same thing only in the name of "security"; it's a reactive form of policing - do little proactively but study the data when something happens. A disgrace and, given the record of government IT projects there lately, likely to cost a mint.

Britain will be first country to monitor every car journey From 2006 Britain will be the first country where every journey by every car will be monitored

[Fierce Allegiance]

I really like the way you think. I work for a heavy/highway construction contractor. :)

[martin_fierro]

RFID Ping

[MediaAnalyst]

You are a sicko!!!

Don't you know that the MSM has totally discredited that idea. Imagine, we now have more cars on the road, so nutcases like yourself suggest added capacity. That is sick. Don't you understand that we're in a new paradigm now.

In today's America, when you need more electricity you go to Oregon and breach dams. In today's America when 19 Muzzies take over airplanes and fly them into buildings, you invite their leaders to the White House. Therefore in today's America, when there are too many cars on the road, you build bicycle paths.

Now apologize to all of the other FReepers. Repent.

[dufekin]

Taxing fuel also implicitly encourages the conservation of fuel, although we conservatives prefer to reserve fuel and other vehicle-related taxes for the construction and maintenance of motor-vehicle-related infrastructure (i.e., road building and pothole filling).

Liberals now want us to raise fuel taxes to several dollars per gallon, and they also want to tax road usage on a highly complicated but inevitably extortionate (cf. IRS) per-mile time-dependent rate. They demand that the government spend these tax revenues on various non-road-related "social" programs. They simultaneously hope that such exorbitant taxes will cause Americans to abandon their automobiles, helping to spread general misery throughout the population but especially to the most economically challenged. Liberals, as any clear-thinking person recognizes, take pride in the misery and melancholy maladies that they can inflict upon society, desiring to draw power from those thereby made more miserable.

[dljordan]

"The Fedgov is out to implement "all-citizen-all-the-time" tracking, by whatever means it takes---national ID cards, national "health-care" databases, vehicle tracking. You name it, and they are out to implement it."

You nailed it Warthog. I fervently hope the "generally dumb public" is waking up. All of this crap is taking place in the background a little at a time. It's promoted as public safety issues by NGO's and corporations and implemented by bureaucrats who would sell their mothers for extra funding.

Here in Colorado they've been installing "traffic control cameras" at every intersection, even out in the sticks. I called CDOT and asked if they were facial recognition cameras (as they were pointed at the ONCOMING lane of traffic) and the Asst. Director blew it by telling me that "we don't have that software YET". They've been recording our faces with digital cameras for years when you go to get your driver's license renewed.

It's our brother citizens that are helping to build this electronic and legislative prison for us and to me that makes them the enemy. What's really disturbing is the number of people right here on FR that agree with any police/slave state initiative that is implemented. It's as if in order to be a "patriot" we have to applaud our own enslavement. We've forgotten what freedom means.

[Lester Moore]

The only reason they aren't going directly to the type that can be physically implanted into our bodies is that the technology to power devices that track continuously isn't available.

http://www.adsx.com/accesscontrol.html

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

How do they handle rental cars? I remember that the 408 or 406 near Toronto was the first toll road that used license ID. They'd copy you license number when you entered and when you left and send you a bill afterwards. Problem was, the bill came weeks later, and the car rental companies would add it to your fee. If you were on a business trip, you generally file an expense report within a few days of the trip. Filing an amended report for a newly reported toll is a hassle, especially since the rental company just billed your credit card, and you might not know until the next billing cycle. Cripes, the contract you charged against might have been closed by the time the paperwork cleared. Imagine Jim Rockford trying to recoup his "two hundred dollars a day plus expenses" weeks after the expense.

This would also make interstate highways a terrorist and malicious pranksters playground. One could devise a cheap, disposable GPS jammer that could be deployed by being thrown from a vehicle at night near a major highway intersection and programmed to turn on hours or days later, or perhaps in response to a cell phone call. Two major highways would be clogged for hours with disabled vehicles while the evil doers had a picnic.

[dufekin]

Oh, I have no problem with building bike paths, and if the layout of the community and the climate makes bicycling a viable alternative through much of the year for many commuters, then they might compose part of the infrastructure necessary to satiate demand. In most American cities, however, bicycle paths at best provide recreation and exercise opportunities for otherwise obese citizens.

The necessary transportation infrastructure in many American cities involves bridges and development of new corridors as much as widening existing roads or constructing freeways roughly parallel to existing corridors. Many state departments of transportation lack the imagination to envision such new roads.

[SALChamps03]

But the general idea is that a small GPS device, which knows its location by receiving satellite signals, is placed inside the vehicle.

Not my vehicle.

[MediaAnalyst]

Thank you, you are now forgiven.

As I'm sure you well know, the MSM, DU, and other organizations continually monitor this website, looking for outrageous postings. We at FR take a pride in monitoring our own, and taking action when someone goes really, really, out of line.

Obviously your posting that suggested adding highway capacity as a means to reduce congested met that standard. Based on this last post, you are hereby forgiven, and please continue to post, but with reasonable caution.

[Final Authority]

This is the plan to keep GM out of bankruptcy. They have been working really hard in convincing people of the value of OnStar, to very little interest by the car buying public however, so they need Government to mandate the technology.

I predicted this a year ago at least, that the government will look at OnStar and see a revenue stream emanating from it. They will see a way to not only monitor behavior but influence it as well as they are reaching again into our wallets.

This must be stopped dead in its tracks.

I can see very clearly how the anti-tampering mechanism will work, for those who think they can just disconnect it or use shielding. When one wishes to start the vehicle the transmitter sends out a "ping" to the transponder and then receives back an OK signal to operate. If it doesn't "shake hands" no dice, the car will just sit their until corrections are made. Can one imagine being with family on a trip in a snow storm and attempting to start the car when either there is a malfunction (which will occur) or that the ice and snow attenuates the signal just enough to prevent operation, whereupon all suffer hypothermia.

Don't we all just love the government?

[sionnsar]

So far, Washington state and Oregon have received fat federal checks to figure out how to levy these "mileage-based road user fees."

Evergreen State ping

FReepmail sionnsar if you want on or off this ping list.

Ping sionnsar if you see a Washington state related thread.

[phantomworker]

You are already there if you have Onstar or something similar.

Wonder why so many new cars have free Onstar?

[Wonder Warthog]

http://www.adsx.com/accesscontrol.html

The Verichip (or similar) will certainly be the "root technology" of whatever "continuous-body-tracking" device that they come up with, but it currently will NOT do "24 hour a day report-back-to-the-office" tracking.

Currently, the chips draw their power to "report back" from the RF pulse the reader machine supplies. There is not currently a power source that that can be implanted into the body to provide the power for the continous radio link that a "report-back" device requires.

The best that the Verichip can currently do is report you when you pass a "reader". You can bet that eventually, such "readers" will be placed in the terminals of every mass transportation service in the country (unless, that is, they come up with a suitable "body power source" before then).

[coloradan]

"We will never use a Social Security number as an ID number."

"The National Firearms Act is only a tool against criminals and gangsters, and we will never use it to prosecute paperwork violations against otherwise noncriminal citizens."

"The income tax is only temporary, and will never rise above 1%."

"Seatbelts and helmets are purely optional equipment, and their use will never be made mandatory."

"The alternative minimum tax is purely to catch high-income people who are otherwise escaping taxation; it will never apply to middle-income people."

[dalereed]

If you want bicycle paths, move to China and then after a few years you can advance to a rickshaw!