Texas Considers Putting RFID Tags in All Cars

An anonymous reader submits "In section 601.507 of Texas HB 2893, the Texas Legislature is considering replacing all vehicle inspection stickers with RFID tags. The legislation also makes provision for the government to use the devices for insurance enforcement. The bill contains limited privacy provisions, but does not seem to exclude other law enforcement usage."

Comments

Do you have OnStar?

[lecithin]

If you do, every place you go is documented. Didn't sign up for it but still have the equipment? Doesn't matter, you are still being tracked. Think that is bad? OnStar equipment includes a phone.. Could somebody record what you are doing without you knowing? I'd bet it is possible.

Re:Do you have OnStar?

[drinkypoo]

Actually most OBD-II cars (1996+) have 30 seconds prior to and after any major event. A major accident will almost certainly cause some sort of powertrain management code to be set. Most OBD-II cars will store this data if an airbag sensor goes off, but they will store it for ANY error as well. You usually need the manufacturer's service tool (expensive but available) to get this information - generic OBD-II scan tools cannot extract it.

Re:Do you have OnStar?

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

OnStar equipment includes a phone.. Could somebody record what you are doing without you knowing? I'd bet it is possible.

More than possible, it has already been done. The FBI got the Mercedes equivalent of On-Star to route a suspect's telemetry to them first. They remotely turned on the "phone" and listened to all the conversations in the car.

We know about it because Mercedes took the FBI to court over it after the monitoring had extended for more than a month. Mercedes's problem with it was that if there was a real emergency, the FBI's wiretap prevented normal emergency services from being provided to the car owner who had paid for them.

The courts ruled in favor of Mercedes, without addressing the privacy issues at all, instead basing their opinion pretty much on the issue of the wiretap interefering with normal usage.

Here's an article that summarizes it pretty well. The part they missed is that the car vendor in question was Mercedes. I read in a different article at the time that while the company's name was sealed or otherwise not made public, the lawyer for the auto company in the suit was public knowledge and it was also public knowledge that his firm primarily worked for Mercedes with few, if any, other auto manufacturer clients. Thus the inference to Mercedes.

Re:An example of possible abuse

[Anonymous Coward]

This is already done in the UK - speed cameras take photos of the licence plate and determine the registration number. If you were speeding, you are automatically fined through the post. Apparently the photos block out the people in the car for privacy reasons.

Relax

[Megamote]

It's not like passive RFID really works... There are were problems with the ePC class 1 tags that causes a phase lock loop on readers, giving a 15% fail rate even on good tags. Now add the intrigue of a functional environment, oh and interoperability standards established by the Texas Department of Transportation.

Re:TOP SECRET FACT: Cars altready have RFID!

[Anonymous Coward]

The correct sokymat link is
http://www.sokymat.com/index.php?id=94

Re:/me microwaves sticker

[LiENUS]

Where do you live?
you will need to get a new registration tag within three business days for $50
you'll need to go down to the DMV for that, and it will cost you $35.
Here it is 20$ for a new inspection sticker and 13$ for a replacement drivers license, heck I just went to the DMV this past wednesday, took me 5 minutes 15$ cash and I didnt even need to show any ID or proof of insurance, just told them my name they looked at my picture on file and gave me an eye exam, then took a new picture to update the one on file and even offered to update my weight and address on file.

Re:Remember...

[abbamouse]

I lived in Harris County (Houston). We were hit by an uninsured driver. The cop said that 2/3 of all drivers in Harris County were uninsured. A first offense has very little penalty, something like a hundred or two if you get insurance. So if you get away without liability insurance fr six months, you've saved a bundle. And of course the uninsured tend to drive beaters anyway so they don't care about not having collision coverage.

Re:In 2007 you will already have them in your car

[abesottedphoenix]

Um, you mean the bill that died in committee?

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d108:s.020 28:

Re:MOD GRANDPARENT DOWN

[Spock the Baptist]

Being a Texan, and having a friend who is a State Representative I'm somewhat familiar with the machinations of the Texas House. From my examination of the Texas House website it appears that Rep. Larry Phillips is the sole author of HB2893 with no co-authors.

This is generally not a good sign for a bill. Normally if a bill is popular with the members of the Texas House you'll see more than one author, and several co-authors. For example HB259 has 5 authors, and 50 co-authors. This bill past embossment by a vote of over 4-to-1. HB259 was very popular.

Not all bills that pass are that popular with the members of the Texas House. That said, for a bill to have just one author, and *no* co-authors does not bode well for that bill to pass embossment.

As of Sunday April 3, 2005 HB2893 has yet to make it through the Transportation Committee. It is scheduled for public hearing via the Transportation Committee on Tuesday, April 5, 2005.

Re:Remember...

[rhombic]

Where's the (-1 Incorrect statement presented as absolute fact) mod button?

In Montana and Washington it is legal to exceed the speed limit to pass on a two lane road. Actually, Washington has some of the most sane traffic laws and enforcements I've seen-- I've actually seen somebody get pulled over while doing ~5mph below the speed limit in the left hand lane (on I-90 in Eastern Wa). The cars (including yours truly) that were blowing past him on the right (I was doing about two MPH over the speed limit) were ignorred by the WSP's. They'll also pull you over if you're slowing down more than 5 or 6 cars on a two lane. Not bad (especially when compared to the CHP, they'll blow past you by 90, and the motorcycle cops will scratch your mirrors while splitting lanes, but if they want to bust you at 5 over during rush hour and create a monster traffic jam that slows everybody down, they will).

Re:You don't need expensive hardware...

[drinkypoo]

Yeah, you can get all that data out of the PCM through SAE-standard codes (J1850? J1950? Something like that) in realtime, albeit somewhat slowly on some systems. Typically speaking using the manufacturer's scan tool results in faster data rates. I'm just talking about snapshot data - the ECU holds ONE snapshot. It store a snapshot whenever a code is set. If the new code is a higher priority than the old code, it stores a new snapshot, otherwise it just stores the code (DTC) for later perusal. The code is cleared when certain conditions are met, or when they are cleared from the scan tool for the most serious errors.