this post was submitted on 21 Aug 2023
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In it's current form it's good technology. It's all fine as long as you're chasing after crimes we all agree are bad* It's the slippery slope I'm worried about. Just a matter of time untill this is going to be used for something malicious we don't agree with.
*I don't care if front seat passengers wear a seatbelt or not as long as they're adults.
The slippery slope is what makes this not okay. It's a completely unnecessary invasion of privacy in the guise of "safety".
I'd love to see some statistics showing that these things are anything other than an additional tax on the drivers. This is bad for everyone and it desensitizes you and opens the door to further surveillance I'm the future.
"Slippery slope" is a common argument but usually flawed. In this case, driving is an extraordinarily regulated privilege and despite that, it still results in massive deaths and permanent life changing injury every year. In the US, car crashes are the number one cause of death for children. It's difficult to draw a line between expanding driving enforcement to gross losses in privacy like many here are envisioning.
It also ignores the benefits to civil rights. Again, I don't know about the UK but in the US, traffic enforcement by police is very unevenly applied. Minorities routinely get their privacy violated on pretexts while cops don't even pay lip service to the rules.
I am just waiting for the article in the year that shows this system falsely reports darker skin people as breaking the law more often. It sees their hand and decides that the hand looks like a black cellphone or something.
Just like literally every other automated system with a camera that evaluates people.
Ugh I wish that wasn't plausible...
Just as an aside, gun violence is now the leading cause of death for children in the US; vehicle collisions are now 2nd, due to gun violence increasing and vehicle collisions decreasing.
It isn't though.
It isn't unnecessary invasion of privacy. You have no expectation of privacy when driving around on public streets, and to say you're allowed to break the law and use personal privacy as an excuse is absurd.
While I don't disagree with the statement around privacy in public, I would encourage you to temper that thought with the realization that when that was developed we did not have the ability to be everywhere at once with cameras or fly drones over people's homes or track cellphones with GPS or use computers to process this information.
This information can and has been abused.
Maybe we should change our expectations to SOME privacy in public.
If there was no expectation of privacy why do governments get upset about window tinting and license plate laser blocking and radar detectors? It should be no different than curtains, shutters, and any other form of passive radio.
Yeah people say this but it isn't really true. If I was following, posting logs, taking photos, posting online those photos and logs of some kid in your family I am pretty sure this would bother you. Way back in my uni days there was an incident about someone doing that to the coeds on campus. The school was able to stop it solely because he used the school computer not by some legal mechanism.
You only think you have no expectation of privacy when no one tries to violate it.
Happens to celebrities. The reason it doesn't happen to me is I'm not very interesting.
But it been annoying isn't really the point it's not how the law works. I don't make the law, I'm just pointing out that how the law works, and under the law you have no expectation of privacy in public.
A beautiful strawman. This is about driving and traffic enforcement by the government, not creepy campus stalking by a crazy person.
There is no conceivable reality where the government will publicly post your movements for everyone to see based this system. None.
Does expectation of privacy disappear if there is no abuse? I wonder because expectation of privacy is about belief not based on motivations or integrity of others.
You're still beating up that strawman. Expectations of privacy change based on context. Driving = no. Walking around = yes.
At least in the US, I believe this is actual legal case law so I'm not making stuff up here.
So I am allowed to use a radar detector and record cops?
I am not okay with this. Seatbelt wearing is a private matter. Yes, I wear mine.
The issue is these people getting into accidents requiring preventable extensive medical help is not just a private matter.
Very well. Maybe we should start fining people for being fat or not working out or not eating enough veggies.
Leave it to the car insurance companies to take a great idea like universal healthcare and use it to restrict our rights.
I'm sorry but I don't agree that just because you want to do something means you should have an automatic right to do that thing. Freedom to do what you want has to be tempered against the damage that is done to society by you doing that thing.
Yeah take not wearing a seatbelt, the damage to society, the amount of money society has to expend if you mess up and crash is a lot higher if you're not wearing a seat belt than if you were. Given that the damage to society, the amount of money your actions cost to fix, I think it's acceptable that the ability to not wear a seatbelt is a restricted freedom.
We don't all live in a universe where every action we take has no consequences. Every time you decide to be an idiot, you are not just affecting yourself, but everyone else as well.
Take smoking in public, that freedom has been restricted in most countries in the world because quite a lot of people don't want to have to breathe in your smoke. It's not about you, it's about how your actions affect everyone else.
Selfish people don't like this because they think that they should be allowed to be a jackass to everyone and no one else should have the right or authority to prevent them from doing that. The jackasses are by default not operating within the established rules of civilisation, they wish to be independent of it but still make use of it.
And to put it technically, they can sod off.
It's actually not in the UK, it's the law and it's the responsibility of the driver to make sure they're being worn.