craigmcn

I found this interesting article through digg.com yesterday, but it’s taken me until today to finish writing. It’s about “black boxes” in vehicles to record data. The premise is that the data would be used in crashes to alert emergency responders and to provide information about the crash that may be helpful in diagnosing and treating injuries. Obviously, there are some privacy concerns about other ways the information may be used.

What I found most interesting was the comments. I’m always surprised when people have the same opinions as I do about the increasing number of terrible drivers. I was also surprised that there wasn’t as much outcry about the loss of privacy under the guise of safety. In my opinion, there would need to be some regulations in place over the use of the information gathered. The primary use should be for medical reasons, and secondary should be for determining whether the vehicle is safe (i.e., in the event of a crash, investigators can determine whether it was caused by a design flaw). If the incident goes to court for whatever reason, then it may be acceptable to assess whether the vehicle was being operated safely at the time of the incident. My concern is that it will be used to monitor driving and/or to establish past driving behaviour, which would be completely unacceptable.