Concerns over the watchful, all-seeing eye of big brother extend beyond just intercepted phone calls and emails: we’re being watched when we drive, too. And while it’s perfectly reasonable to accept that we’re occasionally monitored by patrolling police and traffic cameras, it’s the implementation of license plate scanners that raise significant privacy concerns.
Private citizens raising these questions isn’t anything new, but according Internal FBI documents that have made their way to the American Civil Liberties Union, even officials in the bureau wondered if it’s behaving responsibly with the data.
The main concern is that the automatic license plate readers rapidly collect the data of all the drivers in the area. Spread enough of these around, and a fairly clear picture of where drivers spend most of their time is revealed. It’s sort of like following tens of thousands of people at a time and jotting down their whereabouts.
The FBI’s Video Surveillance Unit (VSU) lends out its fleet of readers to local field offices for crime investigations, but there’s little regulation as to how the readers are used. While intended to track the behavior of criminal suspects, there’s nothing stopping the FBI from just following down specific groups for the heck of it.
When we say “little regulation,” it’s because we don’t know what the specifics are. The ACLU-acquired documents reveal that the FBI stopped purchasing the plate readers temporarily because its Office of General Counsel was “wrestling with LPR privacy issues.”
The documents reveal that there has since been some regulatory policy in place, but there’s little to no transparency as to what that is. While its good that the Bureau are at least acknowledging the issue, groups like the ACLU feel we should know what the self-governing rules are so we can deem them sufficient, as well as legislate how long the collected data is retained.
Like all the other stories of our digital lives being monitored and tucked away somewhere, this is equally as scary, but its fortunate that groups like the ACLU are here to remind us that our voice determines whether we accept these things or not.
BYD has launched the third-generation Qin Plus DM-i in China, and the first thing that caught my eye is its price. According to CarNewsChina, the plug-in hybrid sedan starts at 79,900 yuan, which is about $11,980. That’s an incredibly low price for a brand-new car, especially by US standards.
What’s even more impressive is the range. The Qin Plus DM-i can drive up to 137 miles on electricity alone, which should cover most people’s daily commutes without using a drop of gas. Once the battery runs out, the 1.5-liter engine takes over. Thanks to its 17-gallon tank and roughly 91 mpg with a drained battery, the combined range reaches up to 1,423 miles.
Apple won the PC market’s worst quarter, but that’s not the entire story. It won the race by stumbling less than everyone else.
PC makers shipped just 57 million computers worldwide in Q3, which might look good, but it’s a 21% year-over-year plunge (via Counterpoint Research). And despite Apple’s Mac shipments falling by 11%, to 5.6 million, its market share rose from 8.7% to 9.8%. How did that happen?
Update (October 22 23:54 PT): In response to our query, GM clarified that offline recording support is already available on eligible vehicles. Like Tesla's Sentry Mode, it requires owners to connect a USB drive to save incident recordings, which can be viewed on the vehicle's infotainment screen. The upcoming Connected Cameras feature will build on this by giving owners remote access to these recordings via the revamped OnStar app, allowing them to check footage without walking out to their car.
General Motors has announced plans to add a new Connected Cameras feature to its OnStar service starting next year, giving drivers a way to monitor parked vehicles remotely and capture footage of certain incidents.