system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
I don't think these 'black boxes' that are in many new cars, and that will be required by the end of 2014 are a very big privacy issue. CMV.

I've been seeing quite a bit about these event recorders lately. They're currently present in 96% of all new cars sold today, and will be required in all new cars by law by the end of the year (I can't recall the exact date off the top of my head.)

From what I understand, these devices have a buffer that usually holds between one and several minutes of various pieces of information about the car's state with timestamps, such as speed, accelerator/brake depression, steering wheel position, seatbelt use, headlight on/off state, and quite likely many other bits of information I'm forgetting. In the event of an accident, it will trigger the device to flush its buffer to permanent memory so that it can be analyzed in the future.

I've seen quite a negative reaction to these things whenever a link to a news story relating to them is posted. I'm a bit confused about what the big deal is though. It seems the very worst abuse of an event recorder will only be able to garner an advesary the last several minutes of your driving habits. Plus if someone was inside of your car to read the data off of it, they could easily do something far more invasive of your privacy anyways, like installing a GPS tracker.

So... First of all, is my interpretation of how this device works accurate? Second, why should I consider it a threat to my privacy?
gpt
What about a future software update for your car that increases this recording time from 5 minutes to 30? And the next one which uploads this data to the manufacturer's servers for permanent storage. Oh and the 300 page agreement you signed during purchase enables them to use this information as they like to "improve your driving experience".

These improvements include selling your driving patterns to companies that can analyse them and target advertisements based on your behavior. Banks and other lenders can know where you have been driving and adjust your rates accordingly. Soon the police wants this data too, to track people driving in the *wrong* parts of town. It's for your own safety of course, they're just fighting terrorists. Not to mention the inevitable data breaches that will occur, jeopardizing your very safety.

I don't know too much about these devices, and sure they sound great in theory, but only for as long as they just do what they were initially intended for. So to me, and many others, all such intrusions to privacy are to be treated with caution rather than willing acceptance.