Newton's Laws Watch your Porsche, it's watching you

Author: Thomas Newton

What do George Orwell, Porsche and insurance companies have in common? Porsche and insurance companies are doing what George Orwell predicted almost 60 years ago: they're watching us. Privacy has become a serious concern for many Americans with the advent of new technologies and applications of technologies, as identity theft is one of the fastest growing crimes in the world.
It is becoming increasingly common for large institutions to watch what their customers are doing. Yet, Porsche seems an unlikely company to be using technology to monitor its customers.
But in the central electronic control unit of all Porsches, there is a small black box that records the main activities of the car. This information becomes very useful to Porsche if, for example, you take your $120,000 high-performance Porsche 911 Turbo out for a day at the track and in turn ruin your clutch. When you take it into a Porsche dealership for repairs, they will connect your car to a computer, download the information from the black box, see that you were redlining your car for 30 minutes and then proceed to tell you that you voided your warranty.
There is no reason that Porsche should replace a clutch that you broke at a track event - you used it contrary to the conditions of the warranty - but should Porsche be able to monitor what you do with the car?
Taken a step further, what happens when your car's information becomes more public and the police are able to pull you over, check your car's computer and give you a ticket for speeding two weeks ago? It would most likely cut down traffic violations and automotive accidents, but would the benefits be worth the loss of freedom?
A similar issue arises with a trial program called DriveCam, initiated by American Family Mutual Insurance Company. The program includes a small video camera that is installed in a teenager's car that is constantly on, but only records when there is heavy acceleration or braking. In a test conducted with 25 teenagers who drove over 300,000 miles in 10 months, there was a 72 percent drop in video recording from start to finish, implying safer drivers. This is all well and good, except for the fact that the videos may eventually be used to set drivers insurance rates and could also be used as evidence in court cases.
This use of technology brings up the same questions as the black boxes in Porsches. Both are good in theory, as Porsche's box prevents fraudulent warranty claims and could cut down on speeding and accidents, and DriveCam could lead to a culture of safer teenage driving. But how much monitoring is too much? Where can the line be drawn?
Orwell, in "1984," predicted a future in which a totalitarian state watched everyone and everything. As far-fetched as that vision seems, the current proliferation of monitoring technologies would imply that this is the direction in which we are headed.
But as long as we keep our senses and aren't seduced by the prospect of improved safety and security that these technologies may offer, we can have a get by without Big Brother.