Posted on Friday, November 13, 2009 9:57 PM
The Dutch government decided on the way Dutch motorists are going to pay their road taxes starting 2012: through a little GPS box that'll be installed in cars.
This little box keeps a record of everywhere you go, and its not clear on what the Dutch government is going to do with all that data, nor who is going to have access to it.
Today, Big Brother has come a hell of a lot closer.
K.
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# re: There goes our privacy
11/14/2009 7:36 AM by
Should've / Could've gone the way the Japanese are doing it: toll roads with those RFID boxes in the car. I mean sure, they can still see where you got on and off the highways, but it's better than what's suggested right here. Cheaper too! And less prone to failure.
# re: There goes our privacy
11/14/2009 8:37 AM by
True, but you know our government; why do it the easy way if you can spend a whole lot of money more by doing it the hard way?
By the way, Rijkswaterstaat claims that all these boxes do are keeping track of the distance, not where you've been.
While that may be true for now, its only a matter of time before Dutch IRS will want to have the piece of the pie that says locations. The motorway patrol aims for speeds, as well as the insurance companies and justice likes to have its hands on locations.
Might sound a little exaggerated, but things like this needs to be pushed in small steps.
# re: There goes our privacy
11/14/2009 9:55 AM by
Still... If they want to put things in -every- vehicle there is it's a lot cheaper to put an RFID tag in every car than it is to give every single car a GPS receiver and small computer. Besides, how the hell do they intend to read all the information from the computer?
# re: There goes our privacy
11/14/2009 6:56 PM by
GSM-modules will provide the connection. The small computer you're referring to will be quite simple and cheap, by the way. The only thing you'll need is a GPS-module, a GSM-module, a small processor with some flash memory and a little software to make the components talk to each-other and the server.
A bit of math reveals that switching the box to permanent tracking (with 16 bytes worth of information per minute), will accumulate to 8MB of data per year.
A microSD-card of 8GB will last you a thousand years on that rate and it'll cost only a few euro's. :)
A satnav is basically the same principle; the cost of a satnav is mostly the maps and the shiny interface. :)
# re: There goes our privacy
11/14/2009 9:37 PM by
Oh yeah, before I forget. Since the communication goes through GSM, logging those calls will be done automatically because of anti-terrorism measures.
So we're fscked, no matter how you put it.
# re: There goes our privacy
11/15/2009 12:02 AM by
Guess it's time to put a tinfoil hat on top of the bonnet, or wherever they want to put those GPS devices.
Although you'll probably be branded a terrorist if you try to tamper with it. Because what good upstanding citizen doesn't want the government looking over his shoulder 24/7.
Fortunately, this has been 20 years in the making, and knowing other dutch government projects, it will be running late, be over budget, and by the time they have a (non functional) system, the then current minister will have to resign over the mess that the whole project has become.
# re: There goes our privacy
11/15/2009 10:52 AM by
I'm not one for tinfoil hats; on contrary to what some of my blog posts may point at, I'm not really into conspiracy theories as I have better things to do with my time.
I am however, concerned about things that invade or going to invade my privacy. I drive a car, so unless I resort back to public transport (ha, that's never going to happen unless PT manages to rival a car in cost and convenience), I'll be one of 8 million people who eventually will have to succumb to these ridiculous plans.
Here's hoping your last remark will prove to be true. :)