Thread: Big Brother - a tracking device in every vehicle!?

Well they can start puckering up right now 'cos they'll be kissing my big hairy ass before they fit that crap to my cars!
I thought the Nazi party went out of fashion in 1945.

Originally Posted by Jamo

Doesn't bother me. If the govt wants to follow me around, good luck to them.

There are benefits if the car gets stolen.

Like DNA logging from birth...

I have no problem with either...

If I'm not doing something wrong, who cares...

People who cry about public freedoms want everything, we cant have it both ways...

Its either anarchy or order - you cant have both, the human species is not capable of self order without rules

Originally Posted by p38arover

If I had a GPS tracking system fitted to my car, it, too, would soon be "faulty".

Playing devils advocate...

Easy... If after "x" time the device does not respond, then some 'official' request is sent to the owner requesting it report for inspection within 48 hours..

Failure to attend results in unregistered vehicle (therefore uninsured).

Easily makes it functional.

Or a tamper sensor on the inside of the box, if supply is cut/box opened, then the internal power cell sends a tamper message to the tracking station and you get busted.



Personally,

I couldnt care if its fitted to my vehicles.... Would have come in handy when 2 of them were stolen

Originally Posted by CaverD3

The labour goverment in the UK tried this one.
They got millions of signatures against it and eventually realised it wouldn't work for technical reasons and would cost a huge amount to administer.
Was quietly dropped.

Not gone just gone quiet on this one here. Probably where the Australian version comes from too.

This is not a UK rule rather an EU one so the UK government cannot opt out.

EU at the moment depends on member states for funding. Sort of like the Commonwealth did prior to the WW2 emergency transfer of taxation from the states. Funny how that never went back to the states afterwards. The EU has seen a way to obtain its own income stream and so finally rid itself of the little control that member states still exercise.

They are setting up a system of satelites to provide competition to the current free USA provided GPS system. Has cost more than expected so the Chinese have bought in as they do not want it to fold.

How do you compete with a free system? Add an extra channel so that you can use the system in a different way. The EU has the legislation already in place. Everyone will have a tracking unit in their vehicle and will be charged per mile driven. There will be pricing which will vary depending on the road and time of day. Speeding will also be enforced via these records. Remember under EU rules this over rides members states legislation. Why should a satelite be limited to Europe?

Originally Posted by Tombie2

Playing devils advocate...

Easy... If after "x" time the device does not respond, then some 'official' request is sent to the owner requesting it report for inspection within 48 hours..

Failure to attend results in unregistered vehicle (therefore uninsured).

Easily makes it functional.

Or a tamper sensor on the inside of the box, if supply is cut/box opened, then the internal power cell sends a tamper message to the tracking station and you get busted.


Personally,

I couldnt care if its fitted to my vehicles.... Would have come in handy when 2 of them were stolen

The ones which I used to work with only worked while the car ignition was on otherwise the battery would go flat, so your idea of the unit not responding does not apply as the vehicle may just not be being used.

In relation to the tampering, there are ways already mentioned in the thread about disabling the aerial or stopping the signal that cause them to give incorrect or no readings at all, so you don't necessarily have to touch the box to stop it working.

An increasing number of vehices effectively have a "black box" in them. While it doesn't (necessarily) record GPS data (yet) it does maintain a record of engine mangament data and so on. This can subsequently be used to make sure people are racing expensive sports cars contrary to warranty tems, that people haven;t ignored warning lights/alarms leading to engine damage which they try to claim nder warranty etc. Basically the manufacturers can use it to argue their way out of not-so-legitimate warranty claims and threats of legal action.

This sort of technology will definitely "filter down" to pretty much all vehicles in due course.

As for "usage based" charges for road tax... we ALREADY pay that - it's called fuel excise - and the gummint should get their grubby hands off our wallets for once !

Originally Posted by Tombie2

Like DNA logging from birth...

I have no problem with either...

If I'm not doing something wrong, who cares...

People who cry about public freedoms want everything, we cant have it both ways...

Its either anarchy or order - you cant have both, the human species is not capable of self order without rules

here here. well said. i am all for dna logging and this idea also is attractive to me,i can imagine being involved in an accident on some remote road and noone knowing where to go, unless of course they had gps coords from a tracker.

Originally Posted by rick130

'Safety Cam' in NSW already does a lot of this, and the CSIRO has developed a vehicle recognition system for the RTA that can individually recognise some astronomical number of vehicles per hour. Of course it's only used ATM for 'research' purposes.......

Orwell was only out by a few decades....

This is the bit that worries me. What if a government wanted to track you because they know you voted for the other mob. Or because you belong to a union. or because ... and you can fill in the details here. As someone once said, 'Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely'. This sort of thing gives far to much power to one group of human beings over another. Human beings have a very sad track record of abusing power, and it is our interests to prevent governments - or anyone else - from getting to much power.

Willem