Lack of Transparency of In-Vehicle Surveillance Programs

The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is drafting new legislation that will require the monitoring of drivers with cameras that evaluate the drivers ability to safely control their vehicle. Infrared sensors will track eye movement, pupil dilation, glances and head nods indicative of drowsiness. These sensors will be combined with Artificial Intelligence to prevent vehicle “ignition” if impairment is determined. This law will reportedly come into effect with 2027 model vehicles.

The new technology will add a few hundred dollars to the cost of a new vehicle while it is expected to save between 9,000 and 10,000 lives annually.

It is known that impaired driving is a major safety concern. Technology that can drastically reduce impaired driving is a valuable safety benefit. However, too often, governments and their agencies are shortsighted in understanding the repercussions of such legislation. They only see the benefit that is conveyed to them while not seeing the broader picture of how the public might react to the legislation. This technology will allow the collection of very detailed personal information while there has been no explanation as to how that information will be safe-guarded from unauthorized collection and use. It is a common problem that governments and their representatives do not understand the meaning of transparency, or they know it, but are unwilling to abide by it.

Public backlash is not unheard of. Recently the Ontario government of Doug Ford made it illegal for municipalities to use speed cameras to monitor speeding drivers. This was largely successful because municipalities in Ontario were secretive about how the programs were used. Ford was able to suggest that the cameras were a “cash grab” and were not being used to improve road safety. The cash grab was likely because the threshold for designating speeding was set too low and there were many drivers who were being fined for travelling minimally above the posted speed. However that specific threshold was never publicly disclosed, neither by Ford nor by the municipalities. So a valuable tool that could have saved many lives in Ontario was scraped because there was insufficient transparency over how the tool was being used. This is how the same circumstance could befall the monitoring of drivers for impairment. Failure to involve the public and failure to be transparent with the public is a recipe for failure of any secretive government program.