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highway surveillance
``` Date: Fri, 1 Sep 95 19:48 PDT From: privacy@vortex.com (PRIVACY Forum) Subject: PRIVACY Forum Digest V04 #19
PRIVACY Forum Digest Friday, 1 September 1995 Volume 04 : Issue 19
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Date: Tue, 22 Aug 1995 23:48:04 -0700
From: Phil Agre
The California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) has been conducting surveys of people who drive particular roadways. They collect all license plate numbers of cars driving past a certain point in a certain direction during a certain window of time, they look those plates up in DMV files, and they mail survey forms to the people whose names are attached to the plates. This practice raises serious civil liberties concerns. It is part of a larger push by state and regional transportation authorities to expand their collection of statistical information on driving patterns. Although the information they seek is aggregate in nature, it is gathered through the capture and storage of significant amounts of individually identifiable information which can be highly sensitive in nature.
This clearly sets a very poor precedent for citizens' ability to drive on public roads without fear of surveillance. It is far from clear that the advantages to the public of creating these additional statistics in this manner outweigh the danger of chilling the fundamentally important freedom of association upon which democracy is based.
I have attached the text of the survey that one citizen received in the mail. This individual called the ACLU, who suggested passing the survey along to the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse at the University of San Diego, from whom I obtained it. Bold type is bounded by asterisks.
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Dear Motorist:
The California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) is studying potential transportation improvements in the Sacramento - Stockton region. We would greatly appreciate your assistance with this effort.
On Sunday, March 5, 1995, Caltrans observed traffic on Interstate 5 between Sacramento and Stockton. On this day we believe we observed a vehicle registered to this address traveling southbound.
Please have the vehicle driver take a few minutes to fill out and return the entire survey below. This response is anonymous; *no personal information about you will ever be revealed.* All records of names, addresses, and data sources connected with this survey will be destroyed. Postage is pre-paid.
If you should have questions regarding the survey or the study please call (916) 327-4577. Thank you for your contribution to this important study.
Sincerely,
Cindy McKim Deputy Director
If the vehicle license number appearing on the front of this survey was recorded in error, please check here [box] and return this form.
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The "Intercity Travel Survey" asks questions about trip origin (home, work, etc, city, zip, cross streets, time to the minute), destination (likewise), number of people in the vehicle, frequency with which one makes such trips, driver's age and sex, how many people live in the household, how many motor vehicles are owned or used by members of that household, the household's total annual income (six boxes for successive income brackets), and "comments or suggestions".
It should be emphasized that this kind of routine surveillance is probably not now illegal under US law. For example, the Supreme Court, in US v. Knotts, 460 U.S. 276 (1982), has asserted that, so far as the Constitution is concerned, "[a] person traveling in an automobile on public thoroughfares has no reasonable expectation of privacy in his movements from one place to another" (at 281). But that doesn't make it right.
The Supreme Court made its decision before a reasonable prospect arose that individuals' travels might be routinely, automatically tracked from origin to destination on a large scale. This scenario is becoming entirely imaginable, however, and proposals to this effect are found in a variety of documents. Citizens of Washington State, for example, recently uncovered a report to the state Department of Transportation by a prominent consultant suggesting that individuals' movements be routinely tracked for statistical purposes by automatically tracking their cellular telephones (see Risks 17.23).
This is a very serious matter. Individuals who feel they may have been subjected to automated surveillance on public roadways without probable cause should certainly make inquiries with their local transportation authorities and publicize what they learn on the net.
Phil Agre
[ Another "interesting" system now being deployed here in California is a remote infrared sensing system (combined with automated license plate photography) to try detect (and ultimately subject to various sanctions) vehicles in motion on public roads which exceed emission standards. The technology appears to be rather unproven however, and reportedly has an annoying tendency toward false positives--sometimes close to 70% false positives!
-- MODERATOR ]
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End of PRIVACY Forum Digest 04.19
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