In more traditional police-states, citizens may be blissfully unaware that they have done wrong until they are woken in the wee small hours by an ominous rapping on their front doors. In modern police-state Britain, the knock on the door is to be replaced by the thud on the doormat.
If this report from the UK Times is accurate (and it is just about creepy enough to be true) then it may be time to think about buying a bicycle:
EVEN George Orwell would have choked. Government officials are drawing up plans to fit all cars in Britain with a personalised microchip so that rule-breaking motorists can be prosecuted by computer.
Dubbed the “Spy in the Dashboard” and “the Informer” the chip will automatically report a wide range of offences including speeding, road tax evasion and illegal parking. The first you will know about it is when a summons or a fine lands on your doormat.
The plan, which is being devised by the government, police and other enforcement agencies, would see all private cars monitored by roadside sensors wherever they travelled.
Who the bloody hell are the ‘other enforcement agencies’? And the very notion of an informer in every vehicle! Saddam Hussein could only dream about that level of control.
Police working on the “car-tagging” scheme say it would also help to slash car theft and even drug smuggling.
The same old, same old. Every accursed and intrusive state abuse is sold to the public as a cure for crime and ‘drug-dealing’. The fact that it still works is proof that we live in the Age of Bovine Stupidity. A media advertising campaign showing seedy drug-dealers and leering child-molesters being rounded up as a result of this technology will have the public begging for a ‘spy in the dashboard’.
Having already expressed my doubts about the viability of new government schemes (see below) I should just add that the fact that this relies on technology rather than human agency means it just might work.
The next step is an electronic device in your car which will immediately detetct any infringement of any regulation, then lock the doors, drive you to a football stadium and shoot you. HMG is reported to be very interested and is launching a feasibility study.
[This article has been cross-posted to White Rose.]
Wow! 😮
We used to “joke” about this a few years ago, after my father got a ticket in the mail apparently as a result of some sort of speed camera. I wondered why they didn’t just put something in each car tied to the OBD-II computer. It would be a lot more efficient (and lucrative).
And here we are. Bizarre. I wonder if they’ll do the same for motorcycles.
Bugs. Garbled spec. Team miscommunication. Feature creep. Budget overruns. Ship-the-prototype. Perpetual beta. Design faults. Blind spots. Reverse-engineered and cracked protocol. Leaked keys. Modchips.
Fear not.
They must have seen those new Japanese radar-detectors that have built-in GPS and an database of camera locations (which can be updated) to warn you in time.
But, instead of thinking “there’s always a way to hack the system” they think “okay that one was hacked but this next one will be work!”
“Other enforcement agencies” – probably the same list as those the Home Office sought to empower originally under the RIP legislation – Remember this?– more detail here– and enforcement contractors such as Capita plc, of course. Just because the original Draft Order was withdrawn (and is no longer available from HMSO), doesn’t mean that opportunities to extend it again won’t be pursued. Traffic enforcement, with all its safety and crime-prevention implications, is a great excuse.
Julian Morrison – That’s not the point. It is the intent that is obscene. Whether they manage to pull it off or not is irrelevant.
“They must have seen those new Japanese radar-detectors that have built-in GPS and an database of camera locations (which can be updated) to warn you in time.” writes Van Gale – Wow! Where can I get one? I suspect it’s illegal in UK though, since I’m pretty sure that even a conventional detector – or at least its use – is forbidden. At least we have access to a database of speed cameras, assembled by the estimable Association of British Drivers, and plugging this into the Jap device ought to be straightforward…
There’s not much to say, other than that the control freak aspects of this government are getting really creepy. Governments that have been in power too long get arrogant, and this is one of the worst cases I have seen.
Why do I get the nasty feeling that I will also get a sizeable bill for having my mandatory spy bug fitted.
There’s clearly something going on here as this is the second time this story has been fed to the press in recent months and at least the third within the past year. No doubt we are being softened-up by Blair’s spin doctors.
It’s the familiar ‘New’ Labour technique, which suggests the initial implementation will be a watered down version of what was being proposed – the idea being that the less severe version will evoke a sigh of relief from the public and the revolting spectacle a smug Minister of Transport cooing about how the government is ‘listening’.
Naturally, a year later they will start the ratcheting process until it becomes even worse than the original suggestion.
Something has to be done about this government – and while we’re at it, about the same mindless authoritarianism that lives just as wickedly in the Conservative host.
The website of the company that makes the detector is almost completely in Japanese, with one small statement like “sorry Japan only!”
I first read about it on Joi Ito’s web log. The entry is:
Radar Detector with GPS
The nannies on Radio Vlaanderen Internationaal have been bleating about similar things for years: they complain about speeding in Belgium, and want cars to have mandatory governor chips that would be tied into transponders along the roads that would make cars unable to go faster than the speed limit.
We here all know this would eventually be used to make cars unable to go anywhere period, but I wrote in to RVI suggesting that some hacker ought to hack into the system and make cars going to Belgium’s seaside resorts go no faster than a few miles an hour, causing massive traffic jams, while at the same time force cars in school zones to go along at 100mph. I’m doing that for the children, of course. 🙂
Here in America, the school year is beginning next week, which means we’ll see the ubiquitous but irritating signs: “School’s open! Drive Carefully!” Does this mean that when school’s out, it’s OK to drive recklessly?
It’s clearly Time to Leave. Residents of Great Britain should consider this sort of regulation fair notice. Anyone who gets ground into haggis by the police state later has only themselves to blame for being dumb enough to stay.
And if you wisely choose to get out, be sure to get far enough away! Don’t be chumps like the Jews in Poland: next door isn’t far enough.
Italy takes a bit of a different approach to trying to make the roads safer.
“Italy is the first country in Europe that has changed its maximum speed on their autostradas to 150 kph! The lawmakers’ reasoning has been that the previous 130 kph was too slow, and that drivers were not paying attention. They actually hope that the 150 kph will decrease the number of accidents.”
And this interesting tidbit:
“It is up to the independent companies that manage the autoroutes to decide whether their portion of the road will have the new speed limit.”
Does GB have privatized autoroute management? I know a few US states do this to a limited extent, but it appears Italy grants the managing firms more control.
wait a minute… does this mean, if you remove the chip, they can’t see you?
Why this pansy-assed messing around with the car? Once every person has a microchip implanted at birth, we won’t have any more crime or antisocial behavior to worry about, right?
BTW, isn’t it scary when a B-movie like “Demolition Man” turns out to be an arbiter of the future (see references to “president Schwarzenegger”)
I wonder whether there would soon be a big black market in selling chip-free cars? Another gift to organised crime. Well done Mr Blair, you are such a genius. The very people who buy such cars are precisely those whose bad driving and lack of consideration for others is at the source of many traffic accidents in the first place.
Ooops, I forgot. Protecting the public is not the idea. Control is.
New Labour – same old bullshit.
“BTW, isn’t it scary when a B-movie like “Demolition Man” turns out to be an arbiter of the future (see references to “president Schwarzenegger”)”,
Sadly, there aint gonna to be President Schwarzenegger. The Constitution is pretty clear on that.
Back OT: If the Powers-That-Be are really concerned about car theft, would not LoJack do? I used to have one in my car, but it was installed by a dealer on my own request.