Guaranteed not to track you
...after the addition of a little lead box around the device.
I smell a business opportunity here...
The European Union's plan to insist every new car on the road by 2015 includes a mobile device that phones home after a crash is set to become reality, after the European Commission signed off draft legislation to enact the scheme. Assent from the European Parliament and Council of the European Union is now required, but little …
100 times better? With the GPS turned off a phone has only a rough idea where you are. And if I were really paranoid, it's easy to remove the battery, or even leave at home. Try removing the battery from your and travelling in it. (Of course if you were really paranoid you could use an older car, or the bus).
"I'm also doubtful about where they got the 2500 lives over 10 years number."
Imagine the number of people who end up in a ditch or wrapped around a tree in the dark. Even if they're conscious and in possession of a phone they might not know where they are and of course they might not be conscious or in the possession of a phone.
A device which automatically calls emergency services might very well make the difference between life and death.
I have no idea how they reach that figure though. It actually sounds pretty low, and to be callous about it doesn't seem like it gives much bang per buck.
Exactly my thoughts, minimal return on investment in life saving, much better to funnel all that money into cancer research.....
And while I actually LIKE the idea of an automatic 112 call in the event of an accident, I see this as a back door way to install GPS tracking into every car... At the moment I can turn off my phone if I want to be not tracked.... but with ANPR I guess the police can track me anyway (although in theory those traffic monitoring cameras don't track you, not that they couldn't)
If you are insured 3rd party, fire and theft, it's probably better that you don't get your car back at all if it's been in an accident, since the insurers turn around and say, "You got it back, so no payout!". If it was written off, they say, "Sorry, you're not covered for that as 3rd Party/Fire & Theft only"!
Yes, I am against them in my house. In the ones that have smoke detectors, I always take the batteries out because the number of false alarms (burnt toast/grilled lamb chops) and the fuck-awful "change the battery" alarm that always goes off in the middle of the night are just not worth the vanishingly small chance that there will be a fire (my dad was a fire officer and wouldn't have a smoke detector in the house either). In an environment I don't control, it is a different thing - I would think twice about staying in a B&B that didn't have smoke detectors, for instance.
There is insufficient need for this type of intrusive "for your own good" tech, and I'll be looking for ways to disable it if I have a car with it fitted, in the same way as I do with my smoke alarms.
Yes. "could be exploited for additional services (e.g., ...stolen vehicles tracking ).... not subject to any constant tracking."
So, they'll just track us when they want to. How reassuring. Especially given:
"European Commission signed off draft legislation to enact the scheme. Assent from the European Parliament and Council of the European Union is now required, but little opposition is expected.'
Of course not, those elected MEPs will just do what their non-elected civil servant masters tell them to. As usual.
How will the phone communicate said "secret tracking data" back to the "watchers" though? Im assuming the phone will simply have a simless "emergency only" cut down phone system. Data roaming across the WHOLE of the EU would be the best pork barrel contract known to man for some telco.
Currently handsets can make emergency calls in the EU anyway regardless of contract/plan etc so the infrastructure already works for the intended purpose.
@ Danny14 "Data roaming across the WHOLE of the EU would be the best pork barrel contract known to man for some telco."
Vodafone are deeply interested and have been gearing up for this for some time....mind you, their mindset is conditioned by their history with mobes ("try the product in the marketplace and dump it if it doesn't fly immediately"), which is completely wrong for a life-and-death service that has to function reliably for decades.
> ...after the addition of a little lead box around the device.
Or, more worryingly, a black market in jammers that are sold to block the tracker in your car but end up screwing up phone and/or GPS reception for everyone within 100m of your car. Haven't these EU muppets heard of the law of unintended consequences?
Actually, looking at the fiasco of current tax law the answer is obviously "no" :(
Well, here in Holland we already had idiocy like that in the past. "Rekening rijden" ("Driving by bill"), every car would need to be fitted with a GPS device (and they even said that's what it had to be) so that it could detect if you were driving on a road for which you had to pay.
The plan never made it, but it seems some politicians went up the ladder a bit.
I think we have every right to be concerned. Because what will be next? Once the politicians finally discover that such devices can also measure speed I wouldn't be surprised one bit if eventually some "political genius" cooks up an idea to have the devices track the speed of a vehicle and when it goes too fast you'll need to pay, no matter what.
Think of all the money they can save by not having to station police men alongside the road?
And when looking at Holland; I don't think those police officers will be placed elsewhere in the force so that they can now perform other, more important, tasks. Of course not; they will have to go because that is really going to help the government save money.
This may sound like far fetched science fiction to you, but once they start adding this big brother crap into the cars I'm quite convinced that it will only be a matter of time. As crazy as it may sound, I've seen politicians do even crazier stuff. Just because they're politicians doesn't make them smart people.
I agree that the government will use it to track your speed and may issue tickets to people and use it for law enforcement. I can also see the government selling the tracking information to companies and on the screen inside your car that controls the radio, heater, etc. will pop up ads based on what you are driving by at the time. Scary! Also a threat to privacy like our NSA snooping in the USA.
"In 21st Century Australia, "smart politician" is an oxymoron."
In most of the World "politician" is a moron.
On another note, how long until oiks start going around smacking the front towing point to set the system off?
Back in the day you could unlock a BMW by smacking on the front anchor point with a club hammer at which point it dutifully unlocked the doors.
How many call-outs to parked cars that get hit?
How will the device detect whether the crash is severe enough to require emergency services? If it is going to send off an emergency call every time someone has a minor prang in the car park, it could become seriously annoying for the emergency services.
Paris ... well, work it out for yourselves ...
Pop up a 10 second warning on the inboard touch screen allowing you to cancel. If you're seriously injured then obviously you won't be concentrating on the touchscreen.
The car park scenario: When that ten seconds timer has expired I will be out of the car beating the shit out of the prat who drove into me whilst talking on his phone.
On second thoughts, perhaps he'll be needing the ambulance.
As an aside. Can such calls be sent to other emegerncy services such as the televangelical injury claim lawyers?
alternatively I will have jumped out the car to remonstrate with the moron who has just hit me or a la Fawlty Towers I will be to busy hitting the car with a tree branch to remember that there is something in my car doing an ET phone home impersonation.
I'm with the poster, how on earth will it know if the crash is serious enough? Unless of course it uses some form of by numbers algorithm at the emergency services centre where they calculate the number of calls from the same location but then that means anyone hitting a tree on a country road will still be lying there until someone else comes by.
I *think* the existing BMW version defines crash as "airbags deployed", which seems like a pretty good starting point. Even if the car is still drive-able, I imagine the shock of being inside when they go off probably means you're not in a fit state to do so for a little while!
The new Focus is the same - if you pair your Bluetooth phone to the car and the airbags go off, it'll make the call for you in your language (presumably the car knows where it's from) anywhere in Europe.
Presumably it does the same as this proposed system, but uses my phone rather than a built-in one.
Cars with airbags already have accelerometers etc. I imagine it will be a threshold based on sensors. The ACU already knows the angle of impact, force, speed and perceived severity. Thats why you see crashes with certain bags undeployed and perhaps the pre tensioners not even fired. The car should already know a "threshold" that is bad enough to call.
Incidentally id love some prick to start thinking with his fists before listening to reason - hell, i'd let him, it'll get me a week off work after my insurance company takes him to court for the pleasure (after the criminal one of course). i seem to remember a few accidents due to faulty pedals (outside the drivers controls) and various floor matting that caused pedal to stick (again not 3rd party added by drivers etc). It isnt always as clear cut as the moron who thinks he is right.
GM has this as an option on their vehicles in North America, they call it OnStar. I've been on a fair number of OnStar calls both with Fire and EMS. They all start the same way, with a rapidly escalating blanket search, eventually involving multiple emergency vehicles and dozens of personnel, of an area absolutely nowhere near the incident. They end with either resources local to the incident responding to a call from a passer-by, or with the police tracking down the owner of the vehicle to find that they'd pranged it, parked it, and hitched a lift to the pub ishityounot. 'OnStar Call,' is emergency services slang for, 'wild goose chase.'
Of course in the ads, OnStar effects an immediate rotary medevac and a skin-of-the-teeth save and they would know better than me as they're the people selling it.
Thanks, paulll, for some actual experience. I had been wondering whether to post the possibility/probability of that being a likely scenario, but you have the actual knowledge.
This is an utter waste of time and money, and has "Ulterior Motive" written all over it in dayglow orange letters three metres high ...
The plonker who ran into the back of my ex-Police Motorcycle will be needing them once I get through kicking the shits out of him
'I didn't see you guv' came his lame excuse despite all the Day-glo yellow festooned all over the bike and me.
He was talking to his lady-friend on his non hands free mobile.
The Biker Plod who turned up said that this was becoming pretty common and had happened to him not that before.
He did the plonker for Due Care + using a non hands free mobile + No Tax + No License + No Insurance. The car got towed and I'm £500 quid out of pocket (my excess) because the plonker had no assets apart from the car which was crushed by the Plods.
On the otherhand, this will allow the Plods to track all those uninsured cars on the road until the Chavs get wise to the problem and disable the phone device.
They don't need to track them. The computer already issues a fine if there is no insurance. Although it makes it harder, this does not stop people driving without insurance, as there are a number of possible ways to circumvent it. Tracking would not help here.
Also, it might be worth considering that criminals / scumbags do not normally buy a brand new car and then drive around in it without insurance. They will probably use an older car.
Did you miss the part of the article where it says that the spec defines that there is no connection except in an emergency and it must not be capable of tracking?
...apart from the car which was crushed by the Plods.
Oh, I wish they did that here (USA). Instead we have guys who are celebrating their 15th DUI arrest. Crush their cars on the second one and perhaps they'd either get the message or run out of beer money.
Massachusetts actually has posters in the shops around here that list the escalating penalties for your 2d and subsequent DUIs...up to 8th or 9th, I believe.
//sheesh!
and less than a month after this becomes "law" - we will start to see stories trickling out about how faulty firmware leads to spurious calls to emergency services even though the car hasn't been involved in any accident...... Further up here - people have been mentioning calls that do this already using existing bluetooth phones - surely this is a much better way of implementing this - if you want the service - pair your phone to the car - if you don't want it - don't pair it.
First off, I've avoided this system like the plague since Merc started offering it as an option.
But back to reality...once all cars have this little ditty, then someone will work out that you don't need ANPR or toll booths or speed cameras or complicated road pricing systems etc as the car can provide this information, so a bucket load of cost/benefit there. Then there will be the "flags of interest" much like the ANPR ones just now, but much more accurate because the car's location will be known 24 hours and who knows what will be of "interest" down the line. Ok, no one will be able to nick cars anymore, but people who nick stuff will just find something else to nick. Oh and what about "special" firmware/software updates depending on governemnt policy? What you're getting is PRISM for cars to match PRISM for people. I don't know where this is going, but it's getting pretty scary.
hit the stationary car with a dustbin to set the emergency call system off?
imagine the fun the housing estate kids who usually fire a car to get the brigade out before pelting them with bricks will have with this system?
Soon a list of "places to ignore" will spring up, much as the ambulance service in london send a lone bike paramedic to assess before deploying expensive ambulances to estates.
"All new cars use a speed sensor + ignition on sensor so the airbag/eCall won't trigger unless the impact is significant."
In theory. In practice a tap with a mallet in just the right place can trigger an SRS deploy, and a vehicle *can* be literally FUBARed without a deploy.
Obviously cars are 100% reliable, I mean I've never see any cars broken down by the side of the motorway, and electrical problems are a thing of the past.
So there would never any chance of the 'chip' calling 112 when the car had not been involved in a crash. Obviously police, ambulance and fire services that attend the non-existant crash will send the bill for their services to the car and/or chip manufacturer, not to the car owner.
Obviously the EU will pay for the upgrade of every GPS chip installed when the EU mandates that SatNavs sold in the EU use the European Galileo positioning system and not the US (or Russian or Chinese or (probably) Indian) positioning system(s).
And when the car is out of warranty, presumably we will be able to switch the system off so that the car owner doesn't have to pay to replace the chip when it goes wrong.
Comparing the reliability of a mobile phone to the reliability of a car is facile.
Modern phones have few if any moving parts, are normally not left outside 24hrs per day in +/-30c, humidity and rain, and are not regularly opened up and have parts added/replaced by qualified/unqualified engineers, depending whether you take your car to a garage or do the work yourself.
A phone does not need to process signals from upto 100 other ECUs in order to work out whether it should activate or not.
I tend to replace my phone every 2 years so the chance of it going wrong is minimal, wherease I've had cars that were over 10 years old with very dodgy electrics. I also have a 2 year old car that has had two ABS ECUs replaced already.
I'm not saying eCall won't be of benefit, albeit in a limited number of circumstances where there is no one else around to phone the emergency services. But if you think it's not going to be a cost to the motorist and be open to both abuse from the authorities and a money making scheme for automotive and mobile phone operators, it's time to take your head out of the sand.
"I also have a 2 year old car that has had two ABS ECUs replaced already."
Does this not SCREAM at you that you shouldn't be using that manufacturer ever again? That it's an unacceptable situation? That the manufacturer's are worthless? What about when the ABS fails again JUST as you need to enter an emergency braking situation? But driving a car "with very dodgy electrics", that's probably not your problem, right?
The fact that you buy junk and tolerate it has nothing to do with it. You probably replaced the ABS ECU because the ABS light came on, because it wasn't going to take any chances with your life if it wasn't sure. You placed more emphasis on that light than you did on anything else on your dashboard, which shows you that the LIGHT is as important, if not more, than the ABS itself.
And did it set off the air-bag when it went wrong because "it's all linked together"? No. At the same time, how many airbags in properly-maintained cars have ever gone off in your face? Because we're talking about a system that would only trigger when the airbag does, basically. And in that situation - whether or not it's an accidental deployment - we're talking a serious enough incident for the manufacturer to be brought before a court to explain itself and to do a forensic study of the car anyway (i.e. if the airbag inflated "for no reason" while driving, you're going to be blind and maybe injured while at speed).
We're not talking about the reliability of a mobile phone vs a car, we're talking about the level at which you judge that help might be required in an emergency. If you carry a mobile phone and expect to dial 999 on it in an emergency, you're ALREADY placing that kind of emphasis on that device and the supporting infrastructure. Hell, I know people who have only mobile phones / cordless phones throughout their whole house, it's not at all uncommon - and that tells you how important ACCESS to 999 from a specific device is - useful, but not critical. Similarly an automated emergency dialler connected to the airbag deployment? Useful, but not critical. It doesn't NEED to be 100% reliable, so long as it doesn't interfere with the car itself. Which - properly designed - it can't (off the top of my head, one diode coming off the air-bag deployment electrical pin, but a proper system would obviously be properly designed).
We're discussing the possibility of a false positive, and the necessity of HOW reliable the device has to be. Basically it has to *not interfere*, which is easy. And in those terms, it's very unlikely that a regulated, mandatory device will have very many false positives anyway - especially if it has connection to emergency services. If anything, the problem will be false negatives where it doesn't activate even though there a serious crash, or it can't talk home properly. Still doesn't mean it can't be very useful.
It's a question of what level of verification is put into it (and given that it calls the emergency services, which even home alarms aren't really allowed to do, it's pretty certain it'll be in the realm of airbag pyrotechnics, not dashboard lights), and what a false positive means.
Comparing the work of your average phone and car ECU though? A hiding to nothing. Your phone does a thousand times more than the in-car systems you have ever have to do, in just about every regard. One wrong move and it can cripple the local cellular network, deny access to emergency services, break laws on radio transmissions or just about anything else. Hell, it probably switches frequencies under your nose faster than any one component of your car will change a sensor state. And, even on a modern car, most of those "ECU's" you have are nothing more than a single, simple sensor. It's not rocket science to sense a shaft position, calculate timing, monitor tyre speed through an small, oscillating signal from an aperture blocking a light-path, or anything else that you would find onboard a car.
And yet we can lock that functionality - even in a phone - away in a separated chip, and voila, we can run Java apps on it, or play MP3's. Pretty much how your car ECU, or car radio is completely non-vital, but the airbag controller is vital and connected to the SAME systems. How do you think your tyre pressure sensors are talking to the car? It's a real cheap, junky, primitive technology compared to anything else. How do you think GPS-trackers with GSM work? How do you think industrial GSM remote-control device work, in ANY condition you can care to name for an industrial device? We're not talking about slapping a Nokia under the bonnet, we're talking about making a small, single-purpose device, in a sealed box, with power and one input connected to a system you already bet your life on every journey.
My point is, that you facetiously saying that "cars are 100% reliable" is no worse than any other thing you carry with you and for which you would happily depend on to ring the emergency services. What you miss is what part we're talking about, what they are designed for, and how well they were built. Because the airbag on my car? I already trust my life to it. Same for braking systems and lots of other parts. But the door handle? The engine even STARTING in the morning? Those things break all the time. It's false to compare the reliability of a car "overall" and paint a life-saving emergency-only device with the same issues.
And, at absolute worst? It dials the emergency services who send help. Wow. End of the world, compared to you driving a car with known brake system problems
Actually those devices will most likely _not_ have any kind of dedicated "GPS Chip" inside. That would be far to expensive.
The receive end of GSM handsets is a SDR anyhow. So those handsets tune their SDR to the GPS frequencies and record a bit of GPS before sending it back to the network. Since the network knows the approximate time and location, it can decode the GPS signal from such a tiny fragment.
Upgrading that to another system is trivial, since it will likely use similar frequencies, it probably just requires software upgrades... mostly on the network side.
What happens when we leave Europe and use a different nymber?
What happens when the ecall device is cloned \ hacked?
What happens if you can't get a GPS signal?
What happens if you get a flat battery?
What happens if you export a car to Japan, or some other country that drives on the left.
"Only a few minor issues to work through"
Damm - you're right! So many insurmountable problems, all of which happen to almost every car several times a day and would make the system unworkable. Why, to get around these you'd have to:
1. Do nothing .- how often does any car get exported?
2. Why would anyone clone the eCall system and how would that affect *your* eCall system phoning in your GPS location with an accident report?
3. No GPS signal? WTF are you - In a tunnel? Use last known position.
4. You've just had an accident - you had battery power a few seconds ago.
5. Not sure why which side of the road you drive on is relevant, but see 1.
re. 5, I'd guess "which side of road" is relevant for things like motorways and autobahns, where approaching from the wrong direction might then mean overshooting the accident, having to get to the next junction, and come back to the accident - thus taking more time and erasing all the benefit of swift notification...
What happens when we leave Europe and use a different nymber? a) 112 is an international system, not just European, that's why when your mobile phone is locked, dialling 112 still works anywhere (almost) in the world. Who will be on the other end to pick up the automated eCall and do something about it is a different matter.
What happens when the ecall device is cloned \ hacked? a) Cloned / hacked to do what exactly? Why would this device be any different in terms of vulnerability to any other vehicle ECU?
What happens if you can't get a GPS signal? a) Use your last known location if it's within the last few minutes? The only time my car's GPS doesn't know where it is, is when it's in a tunnel, but is still guesses where it is using car speed, so it will know its rough location to within a few hundred meters which should be good enough.
What happens if you get a flat battery? a) How are you going to get into a car accident if your car battery is flat and the car can't be driven?
What happens if you export a car to Japan, or some other country that drives on the left. a) Can you only call the emergency services from central Europe where they drive on the right? I thought those of us living in the UK who drive on the left could make phone calls as well, maybe I'm mistaken. Anyway, I'm sure if a car is exported, diagnostic tools will be available to change the settings on the eCall chip.
- What happens when we leave Europe and use a different nymber?
eCall doesn't rely on dialling a number - it initiates an emergency call. Same as with your cellphone if you don't enter the PIN but still can trigger an emergency call. Dialling '112' on a mobile also initiates an emergency call - since the mobile was told by the network that '112' is a locally available emergency number.
- What happens when the ecall device is cloned \ hacked?
Sorry? It's a device that is bolted in your car and, if necessary, directs emergency services to the last known position. What do you want to clone or hack here?
- What happens if you can't get a GPS signal?
Same as what happens with your car's navigation system (if it's a good one). Either you use the last known position or the estimated position from speed and direction sensors.
- What happens if you get a flat battery?
It won't work, simple as that. Just because you were in a car that was driving along merrily a couple of seconds ago doesn't mean that there's juice available from the battery _NOW_. But as long as there's a chance of getting some juice out of the battery, the system will try to put you through to the emergency operator(s).
- What happens if you export a car to Japan, or some other country that drives on the left.
Don't know what you're aiming at. If it's the question as to on which side of the road you've been driving on just before the accident - it's not just the position that is known, but also speed and direction.
Trust me, I'm sitting across the guy who implemented that stuff for a major German manufacturer. The technical side works. At least as long as it's part of an integrated navigation/communication/entertainment system with access to the car's communication bus.
AC for obvious reasons.
If it can be used to recover stolen cars, how will they do that it the device is only activated after a crash? This implies that the device is tracking you the entire time (and obviously that's the plan or why would they want us to have them?).
This device will for sure phone home continually and act as a conversation listening device in every vehicle in classic Orwellian style.
You'll wonder why suddenly every time you break the speed limit for a second or two, suddenly there's a patrol car on your tail.
This will for sure be exploited in order to use every ounce of it's capabilities against the public. Let's get the hell out of the EU FAST!
no GPS in amongst the mountains, rocks and glens, no mobile signals...ah peace at last
until you drive off the mountain road when scared by sheep or just gazing at the view!
no help there then!
ps. what happens in the Swiss tunnels or even those in souther france and the Gorge du Verdun?
I bet if you tried you could find of a more ridiculous flaw in a system.
What happens? Nothing. You get no GPS lock or no mobile phone signal. What would happen if you tried to dial 999 in those circumstances? Nothing. The tunnels have cameras, and accidents are fairly easy to spot (i.e. within seconds, the tunnel is jammed up).
What, precisely, about this system is wrong because it can't cope with that situation? Nothing. It's NO WORSE than you dialling 999 in those circumstances, but it's also QUICKER dialling 999 if you're incapacitated, drive off a road in the middle of nowhere and hit a tree, or whatever.
It's like saying "What's the point of having 999 on a mobile phone if some places can't get a signal?!", and just as stupid.
that is until May May of Maidenhead gets her hands o it or ACPO decides, once again, to do their own thing as they have with the number plate photo scheme.
Then they can add tolls for different roads, the surreptitious applications will be unlimited.
ow where are my wire cutters?
Exactly the same as now - nothing unless/until someone finds your car with a body in it. And, given the ridiculously low numbers cited (2500 in ten years pan-EU), there is very little chance of it happening anyway.
Personally, I want the security of knowing that it is still possible to die unnoticed in a car accident - it means there is still privacy and anonymity available.
You and your children first. Ships and other floating objects have buoys which send a distress signal getting wet when the ship sinks. I am not sure if seamen had or had not any wet dreams or opposition to such an device. This is about a similar device sending a distress signal from a car in distress. No more, no less. There was a lot of shit about having to use a "safety belt" too, taking all the liberty out of driving and being such a time waste in putting it one. I suppose ABS was also a communist plot to take the knowledge out of the art of braking. Technology is not the bad big brother -84. We are. I am too, more interested in what ever related to IT. But the problem is that we have totally forgotten who are "running" us. This article was about education for IT. And I did like it and it introduced questions and memories. But in politics no education is required and as far as I remember now, the only one.
Technology, since the stone age, has gone forward, and there is no end to it. But the problem is not technology but the people who we have elected to use it. Or rather the people who creep out of their holes when we do not give a shit about it. To day, we look at problematic countries like Turkey, and similar, and we feel sorry for stupid, when people and governments do not know how to behave in an democratic and orderly way like us. And still they are the ones who respond to stupidity.
It is easy to push the bill across the table (I do, never look your self in the mirror) to friends in the US and perhaps because of your size and importance. How come half of your population believe in Smith or George or Jesus or who ever. The world is 5000 years old and so forth. Sarah grand grand.. was riding a dinosaur.
Technology does not frighten me, the people abusing it do, all while we are "asleep" discussing the wonderful world of C or C++.
I have always used a seat belt in the car, even before it became a legal requirement (I even fitted seatbelts to cars that didn't have them - yes, I've had some old cars), and I always keep my seat belt on whilst on a plane at cruising height - I believe in seat belts. However, I have always been against the legal requirement to wear them - no-one else gets hurt if an unsecured driver/passenger* isn't belted in, and so I have always regarded it as an illegitimate intrusion into free choice to mandate it. It is akin to compelling someone with a potentially, but not probably, life-threatening illness to take medication.
*OK, there is the scenario where the unrestrained rear-seat passenger mixes brains with the restrained front-seat occupant ...
While I don't think that there is any sinister intent behind this particular policy, it does show the widespread desire to imbed connectivity into everyday objects for our convenience. The privacy implications are obvious &, in fact, while he was still head of the CIA, David Petraeus gave a speech on the potential (http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/03/petraeus-tv-remote/). With the recent revelations about the Americans' spy programmes shouldn't governments & companies think very carefully before they add to the NSA's data hoard?
How exciting, not long now and they will be able to charge us per mile traveled. This data shared with the CIA for my security will ensure that no terrorist will ever again be able to blow/shoot anyone anywhere. I just can not wait. All Hail the mighty EU. Or should we bow down in reverence to the majestic care they lavish upon us.
So, half of the tin hatters seem to jump to the conclusion that this will lead to always on connections to the phone devices, constantly sending a stream of speed/location data back to big brother.
Have you really thought this through?
How well would the networks cope with millions of always on connections? The towers around the M25, the M42/M40/M6 Toll interchange, most town/city centres, would instantly be swamped with constant chatter of cars saying "look at me, I'm here", whilst actual phone calls would never get through.
The mobile infrastructure in a lot of places can't cope at the moment, without overloading it with pointless data like that.
Even the most paranoid politician would see that this would be no use as an anti-terrorism measure, as all a terrorist would need to do is buy an old car.
What is the most likely reason for this is that various companies have been lobby the EU hard as this is a major money spinner. All the good(?) reasons are spouted out with no coresponding look at who ultimately is going to benefit from this financially.
This is also a nice revenue generator as there is going to be all the support infrastructure to go with it. Yet another crackpot EU decision by a bunch of incompetent politicions and faceless beaurocrats, all feathreing their own nests.