Ford Develops a Way To Monitor Police Driving

cartechboy writes Sometimes you wonder, "Who's watching the police?" Well, now it appears everyone can as Ford has developed a way to track how the police drive. The automaker has announced a new telematics system for police cars that will keep tabs on the cops while they are driving, tracking their behavior in real time. The system will be able to tell what speed the police offers are traveling, whether they're wearing their seat belts, and where they're driving. The idea behind this system is to improve fleet management with a side benefit of creating a degree of transparency to improve public trust.

Comments

Re:I just got a message from the future!

[Jason Levine]

The differences between applying this to the police and to the general public are that the police are public servants (they work for the public) and they are endowed with special powers above and beyond a "normal citizen" (arrest, ability to use force in some cases, etc). They do a valuable service, but this power can also lead to abuses. Making police activities more transparent helps assure the public that their powers aren't being abused. This justification wouldn't apply to your average citizen. (This isn't to say that the police wouldn't love to apply it to everyone. Just that any reasoning to that end would be flawed.)