Articles in the Auto Black Boxes Category
Auto Black Boxes, Privacy in Public, Privacy on the Roads »
As a follow-up to this long ago posting, the National Highway Traffic Safety Asministration has passed a resolution requiring car manufacturers to inform buyers if their cars are equipped with event data recorders (EDRs). Car manufacturers must comply with the new regulation beginning in the 2011 model year; currently, about 64 percent of model year 2005 cars are equipped with black boxes, and some car makers do note their presence in the owner’s manual (that nobody reads).
Still to be done: Federal legislation on the type of information that can be …
Auto Black Boxes, Privacy on the Roads »
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has a story about a new bill in the Pennsylvania legislature (Senate Bill 1050) that would require car dealers to tell buyers about the existence of automible black boxes and give the car owner greater control over release of the data on the recorder in case of an accident:
It has two main provisions: A car buyer would have to be notified by the dealer, at the time of purchase, that there is an EDR in the vehicle. Also, the owner’s manual for the new vehicle would have …
Auto Black Boxes, Privacy on the Roads »
Wired News reports that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration plans to release new rules for controversial car black boxes this summer:
Contrary to expectations, the rules don’t require automakers to install the boxes in every car, but they do require the boxes to record a minimum of 29 pieces of data, more than most black boxes currently record.In a nod to privacy concerns, the rules require automakers to disclose in the owner’s manual when a car has a black box and why it’s there. But privacy advocates say they’re disappointed …
Auto Black Boxes, Privacy on the Roads »
Warren Webb at EDN.com has posted a nice summary article on the vehicle black box controversy, “Black Boxes Capture Car-crash Data, Controversy”:
With little fanfare or customer notification, some automobile manufacturers have for years been recording your driving habits. Initially for optimizing subsystem performance, event-data recorders have now evolved into devices that can store multiple data elements, including engine speed, vehicle speed, air-bag deployment, seat-belt use, and the state of the brakes before and during a crash. Although they are a boon to automobile designers, safety experts, insurance companies, and researchers, …
Auto Black Boxes, Privacy on the Roads »
One of the concerns regarding new information technologies used in cars is the ownership of the data. This is a particular concern in the case of black boxes, systems that record pre-accident vehicle data, mostly for the benefit of insurance companies. It is good to hear, then, that North Dakota has become the first state to pass legislation giving drivers sole ownership rights in a car’s black box:
The legislature overwhelmingly approved the bill, which also aims at requiring auto manufacturers to notify owners of the presence of black boxes in …
