Black Boxes In Cars Raise Privacy Concerns

(Friday, December 7th, 2012)

Many motorists don’t know it, but it’s likely that every time they get behind the wheel, there’s a snitch along for the ride.

In the next few days, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is expected to propose long-delayed regulations requiring auto manufacturers to include event data recorders — better known as “black boxes” — in all new cars and light trucks. But the agency is behind the curve. Automakers have been quietly tucking the devices, which automatically record the actions of drivers and the responses of their vehicles in a continuous information loop, into most new cars for years.

When a car is involved in a crash or when its airbags deploy, inputs from the vehicle’s sensors during the 5 to 10 seconds before impact are automatically preserved. That’s usually enough to record things like how fast the car was traveling and whether the driver applied the brake, was steering erratically or had a seat belt on.

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There’s no opt-out. It’s extremely difficult for car owners to disable the recorders. Although some vehicle models have had recorders since the early 1990s, a federal requirement that automakers disclose their existence in owner’s manuals didn’t go into effect until three months ago. Automakers who voluntarily put recorders in vehicles are also now required to gather a minimum of 15 types of data.

Besides the upcoming proposal to put recorders in all new vehicles, the traffic safety administration is also considering expanding the data requirement to include as many as 30 additional types of data such as whether the vehicle’s electronic stability control was engaged, the driver’s seat position or whether the front-seat passenger was belted in. Some manufacturers already are collecting the information. Engineers have identified more than 80 data points that might be useful.

Despite privacy complaints, the traffic safety administration so far hasn’t put any limits on how the information can be used. About a dozen states have some law regarding data recorders, but the rest do not.

“Right now we’re in an environment where there are no rules, there are no limits, there are no consequences and there is no transparency,” said Lillie Coney, associate director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a privacy advocacy group. “Most people who are operating a motor vehicle have no idea this technology is integrated into their vehicle.”



The alliance opposes the government requiring recorders in all vehicles.

Data recorders “help our engineers understand how cars perform in the real world, and we already have put them on over 90 percent of (new) vehicles without any mandate being necessary,” Bergquist said.


“The barn door is already open. It’s a question of whether we use the information that’s already out there,” said Henry Jasny, vice president of Advocates for Highway and Automotive Safety.

The National Transportation Safety Board has been pushing for recorders in all passenger vehicles since the board’s investigation of a 2003 accident in which an elderly driver plowed through an open-air market in Santa Monica, Calif. Ten people were killed and 63 were injured. The driver refused to be interviewed and his 1992 Buick LeSabre didn’t have a recorder. After ruling out other possibilities, investigators ultimately guessed that he had either mistakenly stepped on the gas pedal or had stepped on the gas and the brake pedals at the same time.

When reports of sudden acceleration problems in Toyota vehicles cascaded in 2009 and 2010, recorder data from some of the vehicles contributed to the traffic safety administration’s conclusion that the problem was probably sticky gas pedals and floor mats that could jam them, not defects in electronic throttle control systems.

“Black box” is a mechanic’s term for a part that should only be opened by someone with authority to do so. The term is most widely used to refer to flight data recorders, which continually gather hundreds of data points about an aircraft’s operation during flight. Aircraft recorders, by law, are actually bright orange.

Some automakers began installing the recorders at a time when there were complaints that air bags might be causing deaths and injuries, partly to protect themselves against liability and partly to improve air bag technology. Most recorders are black boxes about the size of a deck of card with circuit boards inside. After an accident, information is downloaded to a laptop computer using a tool unique to the vehicle’s manufacturer. As electronics in cars have increased, the kinds of data that can be recorded have grown as well. Some more recent recorders are part of the vehicle’s computers rather than a separate device.


A transportation bill passed by the Senate earlier this year would have required that all new cars and light trucks have recorders and designated a vehicle’s owner as the owner of the data. The provision was removed during House-Senate negotiations on the measure at the behest of House Republican lawmakers who said they were concerned about privacy.

“Many of us would see it as a slippery slope toward big government and Big Brother knowing what we’re doing and where we are,” Rep. Bill Shuster, R-Pa., who is slated to take over the chairmanship of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee in January, said at the time. “Privacy is a big concern for many across America.”


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  1. akuperma says:

    This will take the fun out of driving. Drivers will have to obey speed limits at all time. If you use the car for something you aren’t supposed (criminal activities, visiting places we can’t talk about on YWN, etc.), there will be a record. They could probably rig it to ban double parking.

    Maybe this is a gimmick to promote walking (or maybe the next plan is to install black boxes in people -it could tell the mayor if you too many sugar-laced sodas).

    It’s bad enough Ha-Shem knows what we’re up to. Now we’ll have to worry about the government.

  2. YITZCHOKY says:

    How soon before your business partner can obtain the data, the federal government looking to see where you used the company auto, How long did you stop for a break?

  3. YonasonW says:

    Either I need to read more accurately…or Akuperma and YITZCHOKY are hysterical over nothing – the devices will record essential vehicle information, such as speed and breaking…but not location. Location informationm by the way, is already preserved through your cell phone.

  4. commonsense247 says:

    Dear akuperma: please explain your comment above ‘it’s bad enough hashem knows what we’re up to”

    I believe that comment has lots of kefirah in it.
    please comment more responsibly especially on a frum site,

  5. brooklynhocker says:

    Yonason- they all need to calm down. It doesn’t record an endless amount of data, it records the essential information needed to investigate an accident from the last 30 seconds(it says that in the article). That’s how Toyota/Lexus was able to prove that the unintentional acceleration and possible rollover claims were driver input related.
    To all those that are worried- if the government wanted to know what you’re up to or where you are ; they already know before you even realize they’re watching.

  6. akuperma says:

    Once you have a “black box” in a car – the possibilities are limitless. Who needs traffic cops when your cars black box will someday be able to not onoy give you a ticket, but probably debit your bank account.

    Once people are used to the idea, there are even more possibilities.

    Why not have “black boxes” to monitor whether you eat right or get enough sleep – it’s the ultimate dream of the nanny state (cf. New York’s mayor and his regulation of soft drinks).

    While living in a bubble seriously annoys people, we should remember that all religious peoples, regardless of religion, are brought up to believe they are under constant monitoring and should act accordingly.

  7. scy4851 says:

    ahyin roi’eh…oizen shoi’mahs…v’chol ma’ahsecho
    b”BLACK BOX” nichtovin……

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