Section 31406 of this bill says that "Secretary shall revise part 563 of title 49, Code of Federal Regulations, to require, beginning with model year 2015, that new passenger motor vehicles sold in the United States be equipped with an event data recorder".
and you'll notice that all of the "data elements" captured are regarding velocity/acceleration, air bags and seat belts. There is nothing about the actual driver/occupants (except maybe how many occupants and in what seats) or location (gps tracking).
In fact there is a specific note in this CFR:
These data can help provide a better understanding of
the circumstances in which crashes and injuries occur.
NOTE: EDR data are recorded by your vehicle only if a
non-trivial crash situation occurs; no data are recorded
by the EDR under normal driving conditions and no
personal data (e.g., name, gender, age, and crash
location) are recorded. However, other parties, such as
law enforcement, could combine the EDR data with the
type of personally identifying data routinely acquired
during a crash investigation.
Here are further limitations as outlined in Section of 31406 of the linked bill: [EDIT: removed as `tptacek` already linked to this, see above]
So, is there anything in here to get in a big fuss over? Maybe, but I don't see it.
Should we still keep a rational eye on it and make sure it stays this way? Absolutely.
On a related note, did anybody else cringe a bit when they noticed the original article came from infowars.com?
I noticed BGR's paranoid stance last time I read an article there. I don't remember the subject matter, but it too was linked to infowars.com. I cringe every time I see an article citing that site.
And yeah, the bill looks harmless to me. Just an EDR with no requirement for wireless transmission, and no identifying information. And when I saw the section on ownership I was pretty satisfied.
I could see this data being required by the insurance companies though.
Here is CFR part 563 of title 49: http://ecfr.gpoaccess.gov/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=ecfr&sid...
and you'll notice that all of the "data elements" captured are regarding velocity/acceleration, air bags and seat belts. There is nothing about the actual driver/occupants (except maybe how many occupants and in what seats) or location (gps tracking).
In fact there is a specific note in this CFR:
Here are further limitations as outlined in Section of 31406 of the linked bill: [EDIT: removed as `tptacek` already linked to this, see above]So, is there anything in here to get in a big fuss over? Maybe, but I don't see it.
Should we still keep a rational eye on it and make sure it stays this way? Absolutely.
On a related note, did anybody else cringe a bit when they noticed the original article came from infowars.com?