-------- Original Message -------- Subject: You're Not Driving Alone Anymore Date: 20 Dec 2000 17:42:50 -0000 From: "Privacy Concerns" <PvtConcern@aol.com> To: List Member <sunder@sunder.net> Privacy Concerns - http://www.angelfire.com/biz/privacyconcerns/index.html =========================== ListBot Sponsor ========================== Start Your Own FREE Email List at http://www.listbot.com/links/joinlb ====================================================================== 'Big Brother' Could Soon Ride Along in Back Seat A New York highway agency is tracking cars that have electronic tollbooth tags for the latest on travel speeds and traffic jams. In the Washington region, transportation officials want to monitor drivers talking on cell phones as they drive the Capital Beltway as a way of measuring congestion. And an Alabama-based company has developed equipment that "sniffs" passing cars to identify which radio stations motorists have chosen. These "intelligent transportation systems," as they've been named, may help solve traffic problems and be a boon to marketers, but they also raise fear of a new threat to privacy: the idea that drivers could soon be leaving electronic footsteps whenever they leave home. "We could end up with an utterly pervasive monitoring of travelers' movements," warned Phil Agre, a professor of information studies at the University of California at Los Angeles. While the public has begun to confront the hazards posed by unfettered access to information about individuals' medical profiles and Internet use, privacy advocates say there is still little recognition of the newest frontier: travel and location information. "We are moving toward a surveillance society. Soon, government and private industry, often working in concert, will have the capability to monitor our every movement," said Barry Steinhardt, associate director of the American Civil Liberties Union. "While the technology is growing at light speed, the law that governs how the data can be used is developing at the speed of tortoises." At a time when traffic is outpacing efforts to expand highways, new technologies promise a once unimagined ability to manage rush hour, respond instantly to crashes and eliminate backups at tollbooths. They also offer police new tools to catch scofflaws such as red-light runners and locate witnesses, and they provide businesses with immensely profitable ways to reach prospective customers. Electronic toll programs, such as E-ZPass in the Northeast and the Dulles Toll Road's Smart Tag, are often linked to individuals' credit card accounts and are compiling ever more data about when and where specific drivers are traveling. Transit "smart cards" collect similar information about riders. Cameras are increasingly being used to snap photos of cars that run red lights, evade paying tolls and speed. Closed-circuit television cameras for monitoring highway traffic continue to proliferate and, as their resolution improves, could be combined with an evolving technology that automatically matches individual occupants' faces to their driver's license pictures. Automobile makers are introducing on-board navigation systems that allow vehicles to be tracked, and technology is evolving for monitoring the location of cell phones. Engineers predict that cars will soon be manufactured with embedded transmitters that allow them to be tracked. The growing number of high-tech systems for tracking vehicles and archiving information about their travel patterns "is unwittingly bringing us closer than ever to the Orwellian vision of the ever-present Big Brother," wrote analysts Bruce Abernethy and Andrew Kolcz in a recent cover story for Traffic Technology International. "It's an issue of great concern," said Larry Leibowitz, chief executive of Inductive Signature Technologies, who will be chairing a panel on privacy this month sponsored by the Intelligent Transportation Society of America. "It gives the government the ability to tell where you're sitting at dinner." He said people should be concerned about whether their records would be subpoenaed in divorce and other lawsuits, and about whether this information would be exploited by overzealous police. A 1996 survey by Priscilla M. Regan, of George Mason University, found that Americans overwhelmingly preferred that high-tech transportation systems collect only anonymous information, such as overall traffic counts. They cautiously accepted the collection of some personally identifiable information, such as license plate numbers, but objected to such measures as videotaping inside their cars. More than two-thirds were worried about who would see the information. "If they start giving the information away for advertising or selling it,that bothers me," Chuck Stievenart, 39, of Fredericksburg, Va., said recently. "We get enough junk already. Now I'll probably be on someone else's list for junk." Said Kimberly Hayek, 29, of Arlington: "As a single woman, I have to worry. I have been stalked before. I figure I don't have any privacy. I don't like it." The agencies and companies behind these high-tech systems say they use a range of safeguards, including letting travelers choose whether to participate. In San Antonio, for example, 53 automated readers arrayed along city streets follow the progress of 60,000 cars with transponders. All the motorists are volunteers. Both officials of the Dulles Toll Road and the agencies that offer E-ZPass used on highways, bridges and tunnels in six states from Massachusetts to West Virginia  say travelers can choose not to buy the tag and instead pay cash at tollbooths. Some systems try to limit the amount of personally identifiable information they collect. For instance, Transcom, a traffic management organization, has set up automated roadside readers in the New York area to track cars with E-ZPass tags. But tag numbers are scrambled so they cannot be traced to their owners. Likewise, a spokesman for Mobiltrak, the Alabama company that developed the radio "sniffer" system, said its purpose is to take a random sample of passing cars and supply that general information to advertisers. He said the equipment does not determine specifically which vehicle is tuned into which station. But in low-traffic areas, it could be easier to identify individual cars. A third safeguard used by some systems is the practice of collecting data about large groups of vehicles rather than specific cars. Maryland and Virginia officials developing the program to track cell phone use have said, for instance, they will simply follow the energy pattern generated by thousands of phones. They stressed that they will not be able to monitor phone calls or identify specific callers. Some initiatives do not store the information at all. Transcom officials,for instance, collect E-ZPass readings to remain abreast of highway congestion but do not keep them. But other transportation agencies do store personal information, especially those that bill travelers for using electronic payment such as E-ZPass, Smart Tag and Chicago's I-Pass, as well as Metro's smart card. These agencies assure their customers that the data are not provided or sold to businesses and only released under subpoena or court order except in emergencies. Police have turned to E-ZPass records several dozen times. In the most celebrated case, investigators probing the kidnapping of New Jersey millionaire Nelson Gross, a former state Republican chairman, used E-ZPass information in 1997 to track his BMW across the George Washington Bridge. His car was found in Manhattan, and his battered body was soon discovered nearby. Agencies and companies developing these high-tech systems have repeatedly guaranteed that measures for easing traffic will not be merged with those for policing, such as red-light cameras and photo enforcement of speedlimits. They fear motorists will reject programs such as electronic toll systems and traffic cameras if they believe these will be used to issue tickets. Indeed, the deployment of red-light cameras, for instance, has met with decidedly mixed reviews, including in Virginia. Gov. James S. Gilmore III(R) cited privacy concerns in vetoing a bill that would have expanded their use beyond Arlington and Fairfax counties. The trepidation is not universal. "It's not like they're getting your DNA or your medical records. You're in your car, and you're in public," said Chris Wingo, 28, of Northwest Washington. Others want a say over how the information is used. "There's so many unknowns with this new burst of the information age," said Leslie Honing, 35, of Arlington. "I feel like I need some control over that." Privacy advocates insist that Congress set some legal parameters. Regan, of GMU, said laws alone are not enough. Limits on collecting and archiving individual information must be built into the systems themselves: "Once you've collected the information, you're continually trying to keep it under wraps, and there's constant pressure to let it out." *************************************************** Like to contribute an article or comment about this one? E-mail PvtConcern@aol.com *************************************************** Privacy Concerns is a free public service of D. A. H. 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