EU Secretly Plans To Put a Back Door In Every Car By 2020

An anonymous reader writes "A secretive EU body has agreed to develop a device to be fitted to all cars allowing police to cut off any engine at will, it emerged today. The device, which could be imposed within a decade, would also allow police to track a vehicle's movements as well as immobilise it. According to The Daily Telegraph a group of senior EU officials, including several Home Office mandarins, have signed off the proposal at a secret meeting in Brussels."

Comments

Secret meetings:

[fredrated]

it's what democracy is about!

Re:Secret meetings:

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck the secretive EU body, and fuck their daconioan police state imperatives.

Re:Secret meetings:

[Anonymous Coward]

Given that Fox, CNN, MSNBC, BBC, ABC, etc... have become nothing but propaganda tools, your statement is simply asinine. Quality "News" has become almost non existent. Maybe you missed the Whistle Blowers from NYP and Washington Post that told you how they only release what the Government has scrubbed.

Should you ask for sources? Absolutely. Should you claim that someone can't be true because of a name? Not today you can't.

Re:Secret meetings:

[amiga3D]

I think we can consider it pretty much inevitable. In fact I'm amazed they haven't already started installing them. Hell, maybe they have. It is such a wonderful tool I'd be shocked if they could possibly resist the temptation. Imagine never needing to chase a car ever again? Always knowing where someone is and where they've been? It almost has to happen.

Re:Secret meetings:

[rtb61]

Far more likely is was released on purpose because it is an incredibly bad idea. Any system to shut every car by every police force across the globe will absolutely positively e hacked before it is even distributed, allowing criminals to shut down peoples cars across the globe. So driving on unlit back country roads would become incredibly dangerous. Driving in the wee hours of the morning with out much traffic about, would become incredibly dangerous. Peak hour mega traffic jams would become routine. Payments to have the system stripped from the cars of criminals would become some routine, that they would become very cheap. I bet those same idiots would considering adding it to aircraft.

Re:Secret meetings:

[MrNiCeGUi]

What makes this an incredible bad idea is that it gives the government a very powerful method to thwart dissent.

In view of the recent events in Ukraine, where protestors or suspected protestors have received a threatening text message from their phone company, saying "Dear subscriber, you are registered as a participant in a mass disturbance", one can easily imagine that this technology which is to be used purportedly to stop car chases can and most certainly will be used to stop private transport in cases of massive anti-government protests.

The power that this will give the government over the population is extraordinary. This is therefore a very bad idea and a serious threat to democracy and needs to be stopped.

Re: Secret meetings:

[tom229]

Thank you! Vote this man up!

This is the biggest problem I have with all those people who chant "who cares... I have nothing to hide". Sure maybe now you don't. But do you really want to give absolute power to a government entity and just hope they will always be your friend? It's a massive risk to take that is not worth the short term conveniences they're providing us. Wake up people.

Great idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Because criminals won't immediately disable this shit, right?

Re:Great idea

[djdanlib]

Or learn how to access it...

Remember, if "They" can do it, for any value of They, so can someone else.

Re:Great idea

[Tokolosh]

No, disabling it will make you a criminal. Cover a surveillance camera, you are a criminal.

It will be fun when a mother and her children are crushed by a bus when a static discharge immobilises her car in an intersection.

Re:Great idea

[gweihir]

Not necessarily, but given this is a government proposal (well, sort-of), it will have all the characteristics these people typically manage to achieve, namely, insecure, unreliable, too expensive and generally a failure. I predict that this thing If it gets implemented...) will not work reliably for the police, but will work reliably for criminals.

Hacker Extortion Target

[RichMan]

$10 million, (finger twist), or every other car on the autobahn comes to a halt at 1pm.

Re:Hacker Extortion Target

[robinsonne]

We can hope, because that's the only way that the general public will finally see how dangerous having this capability is.

~# sh gridl0ck -horns -flashinglights -lockdoors

[bazmail]

At least the inevitable war-driving hacks for this will put IT security center stage and not the usual 30 second slot in the late evening news.

Tin Foil Hats

[mk1004]

Because the Daily Mail is like the Onion, only the jokes are by accident.

OnStar coming to EU?

[Anonymous Coward]

Lots of the above posts go on and on about hackers, yet I don't hear about this happening to all those OnStar equiped vehicles that have the ability to remotely disable your engine.

Re:The EU

[0123456]

Where all member states are gathered *as equals* to do what Germany wants.

While that's often true, I'm sure I remember the British government suggesting this some years ago.

What usually seems to happen is that EU governments who want to impose draconian rules but can't get them past their own voters go to the EU, get it passed there, and then say 'sorry, we can't stop it, it's the EU, got to to what they tell us, boy, we're so totally upset about this'.

Re:What could possibly go wrong?

[amiga3D]

Of course, some people will have their automobiles exempted because some people are more equal than others.