Black box data recorders--coming to a car near you!!

[CW&M Mom]

My main issue with these is that I own the car, all information enclosed in the vehicle is my personal property. You need a few things to be able to access my personal information....a warrant, a signed agreement by me, or over my dead body. What people don't realize is that when you sign up for your insurance policy and request reimbursement through them for an accident, you're signing over the rights to your personal data contained in these recorders.

Most of the time, it's no big deal, but as with any government or commercial intrusion into personal freedoms and privacy, it doesn't ever stop there. The same thing happened with health insurance. First we pay for the insurance and ask them to pay our bills....then, they wanted more control, so we had to begin giving the doctor's a signed waiver to disclose our personal medical information with a financially based insurance company. Now, we'll no doubt be giving our medical information to the government too, thanks to our wonderful new health bill. But....I digress.....

First, we're allowing our private information to be given to insurance companies because we want them to pay for our car (no big deal, that's the price we pay for having insurance). Second, we'll end up having legislation that allows police or a government agency to access these records directly or through the insurance companies without a warrant for "investigative or safety reasons". Every invasion of privacy starts with "it's for your own good to keep you safe" line.

What's next.....the recorders that not only record the last 30 seconds of your car data but then GPS mapping as well? I've resigned myself not to come back and check this thread simply because of the responses I know will come..."oh, that wouldn't ever happen, it's just to keep us safe, the government is supposed to take care of us and watch over us", blah blah blah.... :shrug7:
I think I learned my lesson with the healthcare debate thread!!!

Problem with the logic is.

I and my children have had (the kids currently had) actual federal insurance AKA medicaid. And guess what...nothing happened. Nothing nada zip. No men in black suits showed up at our door, no denials for coverage, no trying to keep us employed so we didn't end up back on medicaid NOTHING.

BUT wanna know what our private insurance did?

First one had my DH laid off...since they were self insured...they swapped all sorts of info...his direct managers knew how much my son cost them.

Second one denied my son's life saving oxygen...over and over and over again. medicaid paid it with no hassle.

Sorry but the theory that the "scary" government could actually find something useful to do with all our medical information...is silly. They have been insuring through tricare, medicaid and medicare and haven't done squat with all that medical info now... REally we give them way to much credit...that they actually give a crap if you've had your colonoscopy or not.

Even with FIL...where they (the "scary" government) had known his medical info for years..and it wasn't pretty...when he was in the ICU racking up a million dollars in medical bills (and i'm not joking)...they did nothing squat nada. No phone calls from the prez wondering why we hadn't taken FIL off of life support yet, no emails from the goverment wanting to know how much longer were we planning on keeping him alive.

and no you won't get from me, the goverment is supposed to take care of us...more they really don't give a crap about all this meaningless info.

[NIGHTB1022]

Well, like most things--I don't have a problem with it when companies do things with their own products. It's the whole "government passes helpful new legislation to keep everyone safe" that bothers me.

Would we expect anything less?

[MaryMary]

Add to it a new proposed legislatures from many states to have so called road tax per mile driven, and we'd have all new ball game..
I'm sure it would include some kind of GPS chip, so this info can be accessed by your employer, in any type of law suit or dispute. Do you think it might be a hard evidence you were not at a crime scene as someone states? Wrong, the data can be rigged relatively easy.
Do you know about such a thing as state sales tax and why people from MA (6.75% sales tax) go for a large purchases to NH (0% sales tax), or to stock up your private/your restaurant bar at NH state liquors? Changing weight of your car + GPS as reported by your car's black box will allow your state send you a bill for "use tax".

[dionada]

Reason no. 432435 to ride your bike.

Reason no. 432436 is that you can do it drunk.