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Cops won’t need a warrant to pull the data off an autonomous car

arstechnica.com

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Re: Cops won’t need a warrant to pull the data off an autonomous car

#71

Post by PeterisP »

walterbell wrote: post #48
j3097736 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because you might want to process it differently?

For development/debug, yes. How/why would a production car need to process it differently and why couldn't all processing be done in real time? Safety certification means the car's functionality has to be static, until the next certified software update. Data does not need to leave the car, since the purpose of the data is for the car to drive, which is a transient state.

If you're driving a production car version 1.23, then the manufacturer (obviously) wants data from that car to be used in development of production car version 1.24.

The technology needs improvements, and the process of making those improvements is hungry for data. Every manufacturer will be in development/debug mode of their self-driving systems at least for the coming decade, so sensor data from every mile of every car is wanted and useful, and manufacturers are configuring production cars to upload as much raw sensor data as is practical.

Re: Cops won’t need a warrant to pull the data off an autonomous car

#72

Post by alsetmusic »

lostlogin wrote: post #50
mLuby wrote: post #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 hap…

I wonder what the police reaction will be to the same tracking on police cars. Using their lights to get though red lights and traffic jams when there is no emergency etc will be nicely logged.

> I wonder what the police reaction will be to the same tracking on police cars. Using their lights to get though red lights and traffic jams when there is no emergency etc will be nicely logged.

Body camera already demonstrate that (some) police will actively disable recording devices.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/baltimore-cops-turned-off-body...

Re: Cops won’t need a warrant to pull the data off an autonomous car

#73

Post by milesokeefe »

cabaalis wrote: post #39
revelation wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that data is likely to be kept, raw or otherwise, on anything other than a very small rolling window, if even that. What the author of this article missed is the boot full of server racks that have the storage and processing abilities to even consider storing the raw data from a multitude of cameras, LIDAR and associated sensor systems. For development, sure, in test fleets, sure, but production cars wo…

In all the vehicle recording systems I've worked with (for a local municipality's police video recording) the only video data that would be stored is video data that is pertinent. So you wouldn't record and store an officer's complete shift. When the officer turned on his lights or siren, the device would rewind 30-45 seconds and start recording. It would then record until the lights/siren were disengaged. That is th…

Ubiquitous 5g could allow for constant data egress.

Re: Cops won’t need a warrant to pull the data off an autonomous car

#74

Post by paganel »

mozumder wrote: post #52
mLuby wrote: post #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 hap…

The public roads aren't private spaces. We allow you to drive on the public roads, in exchange for you giving up your driving privacy. This is why cops can stop you and give you a breathalyzer at will, because that's the trade-off you agreed to when you got your driver's license. If you want to encrypt your driving data, you should only drive on private roads. I never assume that driving is a right, instead of a priv…

> I never assume that driving is a right, instead of a privilege, and the best way to maintain privacy is to just not participate in public activities in the first place..

You can extend that reasoning to public sidewalks. I mean, walking is indeed a "public activity" that takes place in a public space, so I assume that following your line of logic you'd be ok with any public authority following you or me (or anyone else for that matter) without any warrant, wouldn't you?

Re: Cops won’t need a warrant to pull the data off an autonomous car

#76

Post by mLuby »

konschubert wrote: post #45
balls187 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Aircraft, even private aircraft, are tracked and recorded. Why should automobiles be any different? FAA and NTSB agencies aren't known for abuses of power. Local law enforcement, on the other hand, routinely abuse power (civil forfeiture, unwarranted traffic stops, racial profiling, police brutality, falsifying evidence, lying under oath, illegal search and seizure...). Self driving cars should reduce accidents, be…

> Local law enforcement, on the other hand, routinely abuse power I guess here is the real problem. I think it's better to go after the real problem instead of trying to work around it.

I'd agree with you, except that the surveillors are themselves immune to surveillance, so it's very difficult for us to ensure they do not abuse power.

Either let us watch the watchers, or don't let them watch.

Re: Cops won’t need a warrant to pull the data off an autonomous car

#77

Post by mLuby »

lostlogin wrote: post #50
mLuby wrote: post #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 hap…

I wonder what the police reaction will be to the same tracking on police cars. Using their lights to get though red lights and traffic jams when there is no emergency etc will be nicely logged.

Love the sentiment, but that suggests that the public has access to these tracking data. (We also need access to police emergency calls and locations, which we might already have, IDK.) I'd be quite surprised if the vehicle data would be made public.

Re: Cops won’t need a warrant to pull the data off an autonomous car

#78

Post by mLuby »

oh_sigh wrote: post #63
confounded wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great. To provide that, all the car will have to do is record all telemetry and upload it to a server farm. After all, it could be months before the cops realize they need a new angle on a crash you drove past.

Why can't it keep it on a black box in the car?

This would actually be reasonable, and would match up with airplanes. However we're anticipating that companies will want access to this data en masse to keep training their ML.

Re: Cops won’t need a warrant to pull the data off an autonomous car

#79

Post by mLuby »

seanp2k2 wrote: post #62
mLuby wrote: post #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 hap…

Retain all sensor data forever: absolutely not, and the storage requirements would be insane anyway, especially in a harsh automotive environment (think industrial SSD pricing) Push back e.g. updated model data to help with updating routes, real-time construction developments, new driveways, ways humans make mistakes on the road, etc? I believe that every AV company will be doing this, and hopefully this data is usel…

Why wouldn't un-disable-able OTA updates be vulnerable to large-scale remote hacking? Sounds like Teslas can already be hacked.

By far the simplest way to prevent this vulnerability is to prevent automatic connections to the outside world.

Re: Cops won’t need a warrant to pull the data off an autonomous car

#80

Post by maxerickson »

justgottasay3 wrote: post #53

I think there is an aspect of privacy that folks may be ignoring. Privacy from commercial entities. Consider the following scenario: Driver A and driver B are involved in an accident. Driver C is in an autonomous vehicle that "witnesses" the accident, by being in close proximity to the event. If driver A or B have the same insurance company as C, that company could get the data from C to determine fault in the accide…

For automobile insurance, I don't find the idea of the insurance company getting detailed information about a collision disturbing at all.

There's probably reason to make sure that policies don't contain weird provisions related to that data collection, but there isn't really a strong case for hiding driver information, there is enough variation in drivers to justify varied premiums.

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