In Brazil, All Vehicles Must Have Radio IDs By 2014
morcego writes "Brazil's National Traffic Council (CNT) published Friday a resolution that institutes the National System of Automatic Vehicle Identification (Siniav). According to the Q&A published (Google translation from Portuguese), only 'visible and public' information will be available (vehicle year or fabrication, make, model, combustible, engine power and license plate number), without any personal information about the owner or registration data. This system will be mandatory for all vehicles (cars, trucks, motorcycles, etc) and should cost vehicle owners approximately R$5 (less than US$3)."
Well, car thefts are quite frequent in some Brazilian cities, so it's not surprise that most people won't see anything wrong on that apart from paying 5 bucks for the thing themselves. Some people will even see this as a good thing; well, it's an extremely cheap car tracking service!
There were really few contrary opinions to the resolution. Mr. Raul Jungmann, national representative, filed a request for its suspension, alluding to privacy concerns, but no final solution was given to the matter since 2007. It had no big repercussion on media, too. That's how things work in Brazil: these stuff get approved with enough antecedence, but become news just over the deadline. I can't say if it's intentional, but it really seems so.