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China's Surveillance State Will Soon Track Cars (wsj.com)
China is establishing an electronic identification system to track cars nationwide, according to a report on WSJ, which cites records and people briefed on the matter. From a report: Under the plan being rolled out July 1, a radio-frequency identification chip for vehicle tracking will be installed on cars when they are registered. Compliance will be voluntary this year but will be made mandatory for new vehicles at the start of 2019, the people said. Authorities have described the plan as a means to improve public security and to help ease worsening traffic congestion, documents show, a major concern in many Chinese cities partly because clogged roads contribute to air pollution. But such a system, implemented in the world's biggest automotive market, with sales of nearly 30 million vehicles a year, will also vastly expand China's surveillance network, experts say. That network already includes widespread use of security cameras, facial recognition technology and internet monitoring.
US has EZ-Pass, which is a defacto tracking system, even if not originally designed as such.
China already has nationwide numberplate scanning network
than the GPS enabled " digital " license plate California wants to roll out other than the different spin put on it.
China does it = Evil Surveillance State :|
California does it = No way we'll ever use it for nefarious purposes ! We pinky swear ! We're the good guys !
"Safety" is for cowards. It would have been nice if China had been less safe during the Tiananmen Square protests 30 years ago -- tank drivers getting the Mussolini treatment from students would have been a sight for sore eyes.
This is rich. China's surveillance state. How about the UK with ANPR - not just the UK, there are a lot of placed, even here in Canada, with ANPR now but not like the UK has. How about the NSA tapping into every internet backbone in the world? The Five Eyes have more domestic surveillance than China will ever have.
Stories like this make me angry. Not because I think of China as being any better, but because people who write these kind of headlines are just so willfully ignorant it makes my teeth itch. We (read every resident of a Western democracy) have been living in the kind of a surveillance state for the last decade as would have given the head of the KGB at the height of the Soviet Union an absolute erection.
for the same reason I want Medicare for All I'd like to see toll roads go away. Some things should just be paid for by civilization as a whole. China isn't oppressing these people for shits and giggles. They're doing it because they've got massive wealth inequality and this is how you maintain a society when you've got lots of folks who lack food security and shelter. The reason you guarantee a decent quality of life is because you can't be free when somebody controls your access to food, shelter, healthcare, education & transportation. The latter being needed to access to former. Until then you're a weeks meals or a harsh winter away from doing whatever the folks in charge of the money say.
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Already there in the US. In the NYC area, cross a bridge ? EZ pass and photos. Use most highways ? EZ pass readers "for statistical tracking". Lose your 95 yo Grandparent and they have a car ? "Elderly male missing, White Nissan Sentra, LPR hit on plate at XX location two hours ago".
Here in Australia, it is more the licence plate readers that are now everywhere. No need for electronic tracking.
Scary, but I had a suicidal relative that drove off one day. Her husband rang the police, who could track her down very quickly due to number plate reading. So there is an up side.
US has EZ-Pass, which is a defacto tracking system, even if not originally designed as such.
But at least with EZ-Pass you can opt out (at some inconvenience when you travel). You can't opt out of having a radio-linked tire pressure monitoring system (TPMS) on any new car purchased in 2008 or later.
TPMSes work by having, in each tire's valve stem, a pressure sensor with a radio transmitter and a battery (good for 7 years, after which the system nags you until you replace the senders), which periodically transmits its unique identification number and the tire pressure reading. This can be received by roadside devices with directional antennas and/or under-road loops, and the sensor I.D.(s) used to identify the car.
It is trivial to collect the information to make the connection between TPMS I.D.s and vehicle owners by pointing a license-plate reading camera at an in-lane TPMS receiver loop, associating the license plate with any wheel squawks sent while the car is over the loop, and then adding that to a database of license plate vs. owner and insured additional drivers. (This even keeps it up to date when the transmitter batteries eventually run down and the transmitters are replaced.)
An ongoing record of which TPMS squawks are detected where and when gives a location record for each wheel, and thus the vehicle, along with its driver and any passengers.
So, thanks to the TREAD act, every new car sold in the US over the last ten years came equipped with four tracking transmitters. China is just catching up.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
You can't opt out of having a radio-linked tire pressure monitoring system (TPMS) on any new car purchased in 2008 or later.
RIght:
A) Buy replacement wheels (they don't come with TPMS sensors) and tires.
B) Mount on vehicle.