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)."

Comments

certainly much simpler than

[gl4ss]

certainly much simpler than spending gazillion dollars on cameras with ocr for the plates, like what's being rolled out in western world.

Re:certainly much simpler than

[gtirloni]

I don't want to disappoint you but Brazil is pretty much in the "western world" too. And it has lots of cameras with license plate reading tech for speeding tickets, etc.

Re:certainly much simpler than

[SourceFrog]

Why yes, I'm all for more efficient methods for re-creating 1984.

Re:certainly much simpler than

[FunkDup]

a lot of people live in slums next to the rich people's fenced mansions

Sounds a little bit like South Africa, or to some extent the USA.

This article says:

There is no agreed upon definition about what all these nations have in common apart from having a significant population of European descent.

Re:certainly much simpler than

[Hadlock]

I have bad news for you, Iran is a modern country, regardless to what you're shown on TV. Their government may be oppressive and backwards, but the country itself is very modern. I travelled 2000 miles by bus through Brazil, and many parts of Brazil are still richer than America's Gulf Coast (Biloxi, Gulfport, etc). The GDP says one thing, but wondering through the capital cities at night tells another. The rural parts of many countries do need to catch up though.

Re:certainly much simpler than

[zill]

Why yes, I'm all for more efficient methods for re-creating Brazil.

FTFY

Re:certainly much simpler than

[mwvdlee]

I know you're being funny and I got a chuckle out of it ... but just fyi:

South American has the lowest levels of opiates use of any region in the world, cocaine at about half the rate of first-world countries and cannabis lower that all areas except SE Asia.

http://geocurrents.info/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Per-Capita-Opiate-Use-Map.jpg
It would seem Africa and East Asia use less opiates on average, thanks to Brazil.
Perhaps even Australia may use less opiates on average.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_prevalence_of_opiates_use, I looked up my own country, the Netherlands, where laws on opiate usage is somewhat more lenient than most countries in the world; about halfway down and much less than highly anti-drug countries such as the US. What does that tell you? Either enforcement is less in the US (22% of inmates will tell you otherwise; http://www.hrw.org/legacy/backgrounder/usa/incarceration/) or legalizing drugs actually lessens drug use (taking drugs is not rebelious and anti-establishment if you can legally do so).

Re:certainly much simpler than

[__aaltlg1547]

By any reasonable definition Brazil is western. European language, Christian major religions, colonized from the east by people from Europe. IN THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE. Western does not mean "wealthy."

Re:certainly much simpler than

[_Sharp'r_]

Lastpass is an RFID issued for toll road payments along the U.S. east coast. Makes it so they can just deduct your toll from an account instead of having to stop at a boothe.

Updating the summary: "This system will be mandatory for all vehicles (cars, trucks, motorcycles, etc) and should cost vehicle owners approximately R$5 (less than US$3) and their privacy."

for what purpose?

[dutchwhizzman]

Why would you want such a thing? Humans can't read it and it sounds like criminals can easily swap tags or fake tags if they want to disguise themselves. License plates at least gave you the option to report a driver that caused an accident. At best, this is useful for statistics about vehicle usage, not for individual tracking, taxing or that sort of thing.

Re:for what purpose?

[Anonymous Coward]

A national toll road system can be setup now. Tolls can be made billable to the vehicle OWNER since they have the license plate number..

Re:for what purpose?

[Havenwar]

This is a government project we're talking about here. Don't expect them to hand you the lube.

License plate /= registration data?

[LaZZaR]

This means you are trackable.

Re:License plate /= registration data?

[gtirloni]

Not exactly 100% efficient since the _car_ is trackable but I get the point. Same thing with your cellphone though.

Re:License plate /= registration data?

[Cornwallis]

Bingo. All the previous posters are wrong. This is the *only* purpose.

For people

[Anonymous Coward]

I think it will not be long before it will be mandatory for persons as well here (Netherlands).
They are now putting fingerprints and other biometric parameters in your passport and identity card, and it is mandatory to carry it whenever you are outdoors.
The next step will be to implant the RFID chip.
It is now being tested with pet animals, next will probably be farm animals, and when this does not cause any obvious health problems you will be required to have a chip implanted with your identifying information.

All for the sake of the war on terrorism.

Most people don't care

[tmcb]

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.

Re:Voluntary... when the chip breaks.

[jamesh]

we have tollway rfid devices in Australia that sit pretty much in the hottest part of the cabin, and they do just fine for the lifetime of the battery (~5-10 years). Are you seriously suggesting that they haven't thought of this??

Destined for Problems

[betterprimate]

The chips will be supplied by Kapsch ( http://www.kapsch.net/en/KapschGroup/press/articles/Pages/ktc_120810_pr.aspx ). These chips/devices are similar to the E-Z Pass in the NorthEast U.S. They are notorious for malfunctioning... http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/story/2012-05-17/toll-poaching-ezpass/55038948/1 http://www.newstribune.com/news/2012/jun/28/e-z-pass-not-always-so-easy/ http://www.wkbw.com/news/local/49044786.html http://consumerist.com/2007/07/e-zpass-charge-you-fee-when-it-malfunctions.html The difference is that these are mandatory. If they do malfunction, how would it affect an innocent individual?