Your car may know what you did last summer, but shouldn't you know what your car knows about you?
A rule proposed by National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) regarding vehicle black boxes (aka event data recorders) has come under fire from all sides for being to technically challenging, not comprehensive enough, and invasive to privacy. Only starting in 2008 will car companies be forced to disclose if the vehicle even has a black box. 
According to the Detroit News, everyone from AAA to the auto manufacturers to Public Citizen has complained about the rule, which must be finalized by March so that auto makers can standardize their equipment by 2010.
It's not surprising that the auto industry says the changes are too expensive (its response to every regulatory change). The best aspect of the rule is that it requires that car companies to inform their customers if the car has a black box, which insurance companies and law enforcement can extract data from to determine fault or possible criminal activity. Only 10 states currently have laws regarding access to black box data, according to the Detroit News.
We should know if our car has a black box, and it should take a subpoena or the owner's permission to get access to the data. The auto companies need to stop complaining about cost as a few dollars per vehicle is nothing to their bottom line. Since the black boxes aren't mandatory, they can just do without if they are too expensive.
For more on black boxes, check out my earlier posts here and here.
