A woman drives with both hands on the wheel. Her phone sits face-down on her lap. No officer pulls her over. No lights flash. Weeks later, a $1,251 ticket arrives in the mail. The evidence: a single frame from a Camera surveillance app. The charge: phone use while driving.
Automated camera companies market their devices as automated license plate readers — tools for catching stolen cars, flagging warrants, and aiding serious investigations.
Sold as a Crime Tool. Used as a Fine Machine.
Sure, and I’ll agree with them on those points.
But Americans tend to be the most likely to take things a step too far. Opposing speeding cameras, red light cameras, and phone use cameras is not the same as those things. These are all dangerous but normalised behaviours that should be cracked down on for genuine public safety.
If we have to have cameras on every corner for “public safety” we’ve gone wrong somewhere our set up of society. Do I think people should be on their phone while driving? No – I don’t even think people should be talking or listening to music while driving. The question is where do we draw the line? Do I get to decide where the line is drawn? Do you get to? Let’s not pretend things were decided democratically or for the public good when they obviously weren’t – because there are no democracies (yet) and cops wouldn’t need to lobby or propagandize so hard if it were actually for the public good. The world is setting up surveillance states and eventually those states will make laws that go too far. It’s a lot more sensible to leave people alone until they interfere with someone else.
Fees and surveillance like this isn’t even a preventative measure. If you actually want to prevent harm, use public information campaigns. Or decrease the need for cars in the first place with public transport…
I’m not American myself, but phone use cameras can’t work without being constantly on. Speeding cameras flash when speeding is detected, red light cameras too. Phone detection requires AI so it’s gonna be a constant video stream. Everyone’s going to be recorded 24/7 and it doesn’t matter if you’re driving, cycling or walking. Who says how long the data is being kept and where it’s going?
I tend to think that having speeding cameras in crucial spots is necessary (in some places they straight up exist to collect funds though) and a busy or dangerous intersection absolutely merits a red light camera… But I don’t want phone detection cameras purely because of how invasive it is.
The government says. They’re the ones operating the cameras. Absolutely, they should not be used for any other purpose than their stated one. No video saved, only still frames kept long enough for the AI to make a determination, and kept longer if that determination is that there was a phone detected, so the photo can be used as evidence.
But in that situation, where the government is operating it in accordance with security and privacy best practice, the safety benefits far outweigh any theoretical downsides. This is not some theoretical. Over 1000 people die every year in Australia on our roads. Approximately 16% of serious car crashes are linked to mobile phone use.
We need to stop treating driving like a sacred right, and start treating it like what it is: an incredibly dangerous activity in need of heavy regulation.
Uh why do you think that the private companies running the service are just going to do what they’re told? For that matter, what makes you think the government itself wants a privacy-first solution? It’s better to keep data indefinitely in case you need it in the future.
They alreayd have all that information, you’re just saying you want people to be able to drive while on the phone
“They already have all that information” should not be the same as “I’m OK with them constantly surveilling me”. That kind of thinking is exactly why they can continue to double down on all the crazy surveillance and privacy invasion. You’re normalizing not having any privacy.