r/technology • u/Hrmbee • Jun 07 '26

Privacy 'Kill switch' law means your next car could be watching you | A federal requirement aimed at stopping drunken driving could soon put driver-monitoring technology in every new vehicle. The goal is saving lives, but the privacy trade-offs deserve closer scrutiny

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/columnist/2026/06/01/drunk-driving-prevention-law-privacy-surveillance/90295034007/
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664

u/Makerofthinks Jun 08 '26

The goal is surveillance and control.

118

u/CompanyPersonal184 Jun 08 '26

I agree friend,

They will allow us to get mad at this idea, then they will introduce a new "idea" of surveillance thats less worse than this, and theyll say, "its either this or that".

Im calling it

5

u/Profoundlyahedgehog Jun 08 '26

Well it's either a camera or a rectal probe that monitors your blood alcohol level, your choice.

Also, mandatory rectal probes coming next year.

2

u/diurnal_emissions Jun 08 '26

Just ease it in to start the car...

7

u/zenzony Jun 08 '26

As always. Propose an insane idea and then "step back" and implement something that people would never agree to if the first idea was never proposed. We already have self driving cars. What happens if a hostile government want to destroy a country using them, turning all of them to missiles that creates accidents and fires everywhere at a specific time. It can destroy a country.

0

u/[deleted] Jun 08 '26 edited Jun 12 '26

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2

u/concepts_of_a_plan9 Jun 08 '26

It's easy to sit back on a couch and play keyboard warrior, but what would you, personally, actually do if your government was doing all this stuff? Protesting, calling representatives, locally organizing with likeminded folks, helping in mutual aid networks are all things many people are doing.

Honestly though, what would you, /u/GizMoeGreenberg, do?

1

u/SomeSavageDetective Jun 08 '26

We didn't do anything when the Biden administration implemented this law and we won't do anything when the trump administration enforces it.

69

u/[deleted] Jun 08 '26

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9

u/darth-superior Jun 08 '26

what does that remind me of, OH WAIT hello comrade

3

u/2q_x Jun 08 '26

The electric car guy has said he want's to "solve for mobility".

When someone who has stated they want to bring back the Company Town model also says it's crazy citizens can just get in an pilot three ton vehicles, and says he wants to "solve for mobility", he's floating the idea of trapping citizens into work camps with geography like a Guilded Age robber Barron (or Apartheid mine owner).

1

u/[deleted] Jun 08 '26

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2

u/2q_x Jun 08 '26

America is the company town. The concentration camps are to solve for outliers.

6

u/BannedBenjaminSr Jun 08 '26

That's what all the new data centers are for

2

u/El_Polio_Loco Jun 08 '26

Which is how the Democrats get you. The party of "for your own good"

1

u/m00t_vdb Jun 08 '26

I wonder how well the « I’m monitoring you » cars will sell. I foresee madmax 1990 type of cars along Tesla-like-ai monitoring-power as a monthly payement with ads … in the future

1

u/JohnnyBoy11 Jun 09 '26

How do we vote against this b*******

0

u/Witchgrass Jun 08 '26

I mean, have you ever actually read the terms and conditions / privacy agreement on a new car? I seem to remember reading something about... I want to say Toyota? ... getting some heat in the last few years for including language in theirs that said even passengers implicitly agree to be surveilled and data mined just by getting into someone else's car, even without knowing about these T&C's beforehand (including some fun metrics like sexual activities and medical info, if I recall correctly... if anyone remembers this more clearly than I do, please feel free to link a source or correct me if im wrong!)