NYC has a plan to track how much gas you use, how many mph you’re traveling, how you drive, and any other relevant information relating to your driving. Sounds like big brother? Indeed, it is.
According to Department of Transportation, the objective is to help alleviate the strenuous traffic of the city, but others believe government is just using the mechanisms to be intrusive.
CBS news notes,
“It’s a tiny black box about the size of a pack of gum that is installed right under the steering wheel. It will allow city officials under a program called “Drive Smart” to collect and access data about how you drive — if you drive like a maniac, or if you’re Mr. or Mrs. Slow Poke.”
The Department of Transportation’s senior project manager, Alex Keating, said, “It can tell the g-force of hard stopping or hard acceleration and a hard turn. So the driver, as well as the service provider, are able to look at speeds, hard-breaking events, time of day and basic GPS.”
Officials say they’ll use the information to make the streets safer, and drivers can allow DOT partners to use the information. For example, All State Insurance will give you insurance discounts of 10-30 percent, and Metropia will get you home faster with less congested routes.
But, security experts aren’t too thrilled about this idea. Manny Gomez said there are many reasons to say no to this program. “Anything is hackable as we’ve already seen. Sony was hacked; the U.S. government was hacked, so clearly the City of New York could be hacked and this information could easily become public,” Gomez said. Gomez also questions whether authorities will use the information against citizens but the DOT said that won’t occur. “All of the data is anonymous. We actually erase the data from our data base every 48 hours,” Keating said.
We’ll see how this plays out.
SOURCE: CBS
