Cops won’t need a warrant to pull the data off an autonomous car
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Re: Cops won’t need a warrant to pull the data off an autonomous car
#2'I felt like I was in heaven,' the cop said. 'It's like instant replay in the NFL, I can tell what happened.' The engineers looked at each other like, 'Aw, crap.'
As engineers, we have an obligation to think through privacy concerns.
These (and nearly all) devices should either not retain data or should encrypt it. Also my self-driving car better not be phoning home or getting updates over the air. I've seen what happens in Fast and the Furious 8… https://fsmedia.imgix.net/19/8a/19/0d/3e81/44e8/ab9d/679cbb2...
Re: Cops won’t need a warrant to pull the data off an autonomous car
#3This is interesting. A true comprehensive rethink is required.
When you rent a safe deposit box the law doesn't get automatic access (warrant etc is required). They law could consider buying just a ride from an AV service to be "renting" the car as you would a safe deposit box, house, or apartment and require a warrant for police access.
But you'd have no authority over the cameras and other systems of all the other cars around you -- those would still be available.
Tricky.
Re: Cops won’t need a warrant to pull the data off an autonomous car
#4This is an aspect of autonomous vehicles that I had never considered before.
Given each AV has complete 360 degrees camera coverage (for detection of other vehicles, if Tesla, for debugging, if others which rely primarily on Lidar) and this camera data is very valuable for debugging and as a liability reducer, this data is very probably to be kept, then transferred to a datacenter. So each AV is also a bunch of mobile security cameras.
LE officers can access those recordings with the same ease they access fixed security cameras, once an investigation starts. Very easily, even without a warrant.
One increased difficulty is the need to ask AV makers which vehicles were near the incident at the time, so as to know which AVs camera recordings to ask for. That location data is protected, at least in some US states.
Re: Cops won’t need a warrant to pull the data off an autonomous car
#5This is interesting. A true comprehensive rethink is required. When you rent a safe deposit box the law doesn't get automatic access (warrant etc is required). They law could consider buying just a ride from an AV service to be "renting" the car as you would a safe deposit box, house, or apartment and require a warrant for police access. But you'd have no authority over the cameras and other systems of all the other…
There's no solution to this. Self-host your car or don't ride one.
Re: Cops won’t need a warrant to pull the data off an autonomous car
#6They’ll need a warrant to pull the data from the manufacturer. Chances are no LEA is even going to ask your permission as you won’t have the tools nor know how to pull that data.
Re: Cops won’t need a warrant to pull the data off an autonomous car
#7'I felt like I was in heaven,' the cop said. 'It's like instant replay in the NFL, I can tell what happened.' The engineers looked at each other like, 'Aw, crap.' As engineers, we have an obligation to think through privacy concerns. These (and nearly all) devices should either not retain data or should encrypt it. Also my self-driving car better not be phoning home or getting updates over the air. I've seen what hap…
The problem is that I do want the data to be stored because it could act as training data to make the vehicles better. But I also recognize the potential for abuse.
This one's tricky...
Re: Cops won’t need a warrant to pull the data off an autonomous car
#8'I felt like I was in heaven,' the cop said. 'It's like instant replay in the NFL, I can tell what happened.' The engineers looked at each other like, 'Aw, crap.' As engineers, we have an obligation to think through privacy concerns. These (and nearly all) devices should either not retain data or should encrypt it. Also my self-driving car better not be phoning home or getting updates over the air. I've seen what hap…
Aircraft, even private aircraft, are tracked and recorded. Why should automobiles be any different? Far more people are killed and injured by vehicles than are killed by aircraft. In general I'm pretty pro-privacy but I've had way too many close calls and accidents with bad drivers who were found to be at fault. Maybe there's a better way to get to vision zero, and if so I'd love to hear it.
Re: Cops won’t need a warrant to pull the data off an autonomous car
#9This is interesting, but a bit of a side-show.
For the more significant stuff -- where you go and when, who you communicate with and what you communicate about -- data from autonomous vehicles probably isn't going to be the main issue.
It will generally work a lot better -- cheaper, easier, more reliable, etc. -- if they get their surveillance data from a system designed for their purposes. And, of course, they don't have to wait for the widespread adoption of autonomous vehicles to build such a system. In fact, they haven't waited.
The big question is how our norms and laws around privacy reset after the explosion of information technology has wiped away all the assumptions on which our traditional notions rested.
Re: Cops won’t need a warrant to pull the data off an autonomous car
#10Why is raw sensor data needed for longer than a few minutes? Is it not sufficient to update models and discard the raw data?