Big Brotheresque App Kills Your Automotive Anonymity

http://www.wired.com/autopia/2010/12/new-app-marks-the-end-of-automotive-anonymity/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+wired%2Findex+%28Wired%3A+Index+3+%28Top+Stories+2%29%29&utm_content=Google+Reader

by bryanlarsen • 16 years ago

24 67 16 years ago

wired.com

jorgem• 16 years ago

Not all bad: It's be cool if someone would report to me when my tail lights are out. Or that I forgot to turn my headlights on. Or if my gas cap is hanging out.

iamdave2• 16 years ago

tail lights = your responsibility to make sure your car is in operable condition.

forgot to turn on your headlights = usually other drivers will flash or quickly flip their lights on/off to warn you

gas cap = again, your responsibility.

bryanlarsen7• 16 years ago

I would be willing to bet that most people who use the app to flag other drivers are themselves worse than average drivers. Does the app send flagger's info to the insurance company as well as the flagee's info?

gaustin• 16 years ago

I would hope so, because I'm betting most people would be using this while driving.

ktsmith7• 16 years ago

Very few of them are likely to have launched the app prior to getting in the car as well. So even with the voice entry of the license plate (how accurate is that going to be) you'll still have to get the app open, then pay attention to whatever prompts it gives you before submitting to make sure you are reporting the right license plate. This seems like a horrible app and very distracting.

gigawatt• 16 years ago

I can't wait until my parked car gets flagged by my neighbor that doesn't like me and my insurance rates go up.

sp332• 16 years ago

The whole point of having a license plate (or "tag") on your car is to make you accountable. Any anonymity drivers may have had up till now has been entirely incidental. You are responsible for your driving, and you always have been since you got your state-issued license.

qjz2• 16 years ago

The license plate makes the vehicle's owner accountable, mainly to ensure that the vehicle is fit to drive. But it doesn't identify the driver. I'd hate to see my insurance rates go up due to this app because I lent my car to a friend, or because someone behind us got aggravated when the car stalled while I was teaching my daughter to drive.

khafra2• 16 years ago

If, instead of reporting drivers to the DMV and their insurance companies this sent a message to a mailbox accessible by the driver, it would be pretty cool.

As it is, there are too many drivers so unaware of road rules and best practices that they people driving correctly are the incompetents. This will fail to improve road safety, although it may succeed at raising insurance company revenue by providing an excuse to raise rates.

enomar• 16 years ago

While, I don't really like that these "offenses" are stored permanently, I would like a way to anonymously notify a driver they're doing something wrong.

I can't stand smokers that throw their (sometimes still lit) butts out the window. It would be nice to have some way to vent other than road rage.

khafra2• 16 years ago

Or even to leave neutral or positive comments:

- Your left brake light is out

- Thanks for being aware I was on a bicycle to your right and waiting before making that turn

- Nice RomRaider decal on the side of your WRX, is there an open-source ECU tuner's group in this city?

- I saw a black Mustang, license plate XXXX, clip the side of your parked vehicle and drive off.

qjz2• 16 years ago

Can I use this app to report people who text while driving?

msluyter2• 16 years ago

I look forward to reports of accidents being caused by drivers fiddling with their iPhones in an attempt to flag other drivers.

DanielStraight2• 16 years ago

I'm sorry, but this is bullshit. Their privacy policy states they share personally identifiable information with third parties only with consent. Their entire business model is the exact opposite. They reason the site and app exists is to share personally identifiable information with third parties without consent.

This is nothing but vigilantism.

artmageddon• 16 years ago

Good point on vigilantism, but I think it's more than that. This whole scheme smacks of grade school tattle-tailing with the worst of everything about red-light cameras. You can't face your accuser, and there's no frazzled teacher who you can tell your side of the story to defend yourself with.

It's a seriously flawed system and I hope no insurance companies adopt it.

bryanlarsen7• 16 years ago

Yes, but school ground bullies don't kill thousands of people per year, unlike bad drivers.

And compared to some of the predictors that insurance companies currently use (age, sex, income, marital status), number of complaints seems like a much better predictor to me.

natrius• 16 years ago

There is no contradiction there. They (presumably) don't share information about their users with third parties.

jamesaguilar12• 16 years ago

I assume they mean the private personal information of the _user_, which is different than the PII of the target.

Also I feel I must again correct this misconception that mere reporting of violations of the law is somehow equivalent to unauthorized meting out of punishment for lawbreaking. Vigilantism and reporting crimes are two different things.

ktsmith7• 16 years ago

How is reporting a supposed violation to someones insurance company or the dmv for the purpose or raising their rates without law enforcement involvement or due process being available for the other driver not vigilantism?

DanielStraight2• 16 years ago

Crimes should be reported to the police, not the public. A public report of a crime is a punishment (see the Biblical story of Cain, public markings for adultery in colonial New England, etc.).

The sex offender registry in the U.S. reports crimes to the public, and at best, it's nothing but a source of FUD ("Find the sex offenders on your block!"). At worst, it's a way of branding offenders for life, keeping them from holding even completely innocent jobs. Don't forget you can get put on the registry for something as trivial as urinating in public.

Give me any reason to believe this system will lead to a better end than the sex offender registry and I'll change my mind.

joezydeco2• 16 years ago

What's to keep 4chan from wrecking your insurance record if they decide they don't like you?

gloob• 16 years ago

Basic human decency, covered with an icing of crossed fingers?

iamdave2• 16 years ago

Read his post again, and pay close attention to the part that says 4chan

msluyter2• 16 years ago

Ah, that's an interesting point. And not just 4chan. Imagine if someone posts your license # along with some rant about how you were a jerk to Reddit or Digg. Let the mass flagging begin! This already happens with polls, or yelp or whatnot. Even if you were in the wrong, you could get punished way out of proportion.

RK• 16 years ago

I guarantee you they have some code like

if licence == Philip_Inghelbrecht: pass

jamesaguilar12• 16 years ago

I think there is already nothing to prevent that. A single 4chan insider -- every insurance company probably has at least one -- could wreck your rates. They could probably also figure out how to send forged police reports to the insurance companies if they wished.

ams6110• 16 years ago

This actually doesn't bother me too much, as long as the flaggees are informed of the flaggers identity. The responsibility should cut both ways.

CWuestefeld• 16 years ago

the end of road-going anonymity can only improve safety... Drivers can ... even flirt with other drivers

Can he have this both ways?

iamgoat• 16 years ago

Wow, this is horrible for too many reasons.

slillibri• 16 years ago

Is it just me but, even though the information is sent to the DMV and insurance companies, it's completely unenforceable? How is this any different then me just calling your insurance company (assuming I have this knowledge) and saying 'Hey, this guy was driving like a tool on such-and-such a date'. What proof is there? If my insurance company or the DMV did anything with any of these reports against me, I would immediately challenge the veracity of the data.

bryanlarsen7• 16 years ago

I have a friend who writes down license plates on his bicycle commute, and phones them in to the cops regularly. This app is no different from that. You should have no expectation of anonymity when driving a multi-ton vehicle on public property at speeds that can kill people.

vaksel9• 16 years ago

so your friend ties up the 911 line over some petty bullshit like someone doing +5mph? Just fyi, the cops hate your friend, and I'd bet that they've never acted on a single one of his tips

danteembermage• 16 years ago

"ties up the 911 line"

Where did he say he's using the emergency line?

"the cops hate your friend"

you don't know this obviously

"I'd bet that they've never acted on a single one of his tips"

even if that were true, the cyclist is going to feel better so long as the probability of them acting sometime is positive. Think revenge lottery ticket. Humans don't process small probabilities well you might as well use it to feel better after getting cut off in the bike lane.

bryanlarsen7• 16 years ago

The cops have a specific extension and process for traffic complaints. http://www.ottawapolice.ca/en/servingottawa/sectionsandunits...

The cops have charged people my friend has reported.

ktsmith7• 16 years ago

This is VERY different than what your friend is doing. Your friend is reporting these drivers to law enforcement and allowing them to deal with it, and/or allowing your friend to appear before the people he's accusing in court for the purposes of issuing and enforcing a citation in regards to a violation of the law ensuring due process. This app reports directly to the DMV and insurance companies according to the article.

Your friend is doing it right, the app is doing it wrong.

bryanlarsen7• 16 years ago

Very good point, that is a very big difference, and I hereby withdraw my support for this app.

vaksel9• 16 years ago

reporting to the DMV and the insurance companies is over the top...those 2 entities specifically ignore vigilantism and your record can only be affected if a police officer who actually knows the law issues a citation.

all this will do is overwhelm the resources of the DMV/insurance companies, costing them money, which they'll transfer to their customers.

and seriously, the only people who'd do this, would be someone who does 60mph in the left lane, while everyone else is doing 80. And in fact, the guy is the one who is breaking the law, since he is impending the flow of traffic.

i look forward to having 4chan track this guy down...snitches get stitches.

jamesaguilar12• 16 years ago

> those 2 entities specifically ignore vigilantism

Reporting violations of the law is not the same as taking enforcement of the law into your own hands. The latter is vigilantism. The former is this app.

> all this will do is overwhelm the resources of the DMV/insurance companies, costing them money, which they'll transfer to their customers.

I don't buy the line of argument that insurance companies and the DMV are incapable of filtering their email, and that somehow this is going to cost significant enough amounts of money that consumers will be affected.

> and seriously, the only people who'd do this, would be someone who does 60mph in the left lane, while everyone else is doing 80. And in fact, the guy is the one who is breaking the law, since he is impending the flow of traffic.

Since we're going with juvenile arguments, I'll just say that when you assume, you make an ass out of u and me.

> i look forward to having 4chan track this guy down...snitches get stitches.

Jailhouse moral philosophy! Great finish.

vaksel9• 16 years ago

-fine call it activism, they trust cops since they actually know the law.

-provided the email gets sent to spam@ its fine, otherwise, you'll still need to have customer service reps go through the list and hit delete.

-it's common knowledge that anyone going faster than you is a maniac, and anyone going slower than you is a moron.

-what can I say...the guy deserves it.

jobu• 16 years ago

Speaking of 4chan. This app could be their next uber prank. All they need to know is David Miscavige's license plate number, and I bet hundreds of Anonymous people will be targeting him all over California.

How about high school kids? Piss of a popular kid and all his/her friends could start targeting your license plate.

This app has huge potential for misuse, and the fact that he's hoping insurance companies may use it for keeping track of customers is very scary indeed.

harold• 16 years ago

There are processes in place already to keep one accountable while driving. We can debate the effectiveness or lack thereof, but this is not the solution.

Generally, traffic citations and tickets are only reported to the DMV and insurance companies after someone has been convicted in court or paid a fine. There is almost always the ability to show up in court and contest the citation.

DriveMeCrazy seems to circumvent this due process.

They recognize they have 'noise' in their data. That noise is going to cost time and/or money to sort out if an innocent driver has their license plate entered by mistake or by some jilted/angry/petty person.

vaksel9• 16 years ago

it circumvents the 6th amendment of the constitution, this part in particular:

   to be confronted with the witnesses against him;

jamesaguilar12• 16 years ago

This right only applies to a citizen charged with a crime in a court of law. It doesn't give you the right to know what people were saying about you behind your back at the water cooler, or know which people are complaining about how you cut them off using this app.

edw519• 16 years ago

I suspect this app will cause more bad driving than it solves. That's right. You. Put down that cell phone and watch the road.

lazugod• 16 years ago

Driving alone is at odds with any sort of mobile computing.

ilmare• 16 years ago

I can't see how this [reporting flagged subjects to dmv and insurance companies] is going to work. First of all they need a proof of violation that would be difficult to obtain. Also this company will get sued by flagged users into oblivion for violation of privacy. Awesome monetization idea though.

Big Brotheresque App Kills Your Automotive Anonymity

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