International

This week in the European Parliament we will debate once more a proposal to make it a legal duty for car manufacturers to include a box that automatically phones emergency services in the event of an accident. Handy and life-saving? Or not? Emergency services have not made preparations for it, but lots of firms find data about where you have been driving extremely interesting and these data will also be recorded by the box. For these companies, the box can’t come soon enough. In the SP’s view, every driver should be able to decide for him- or herself whether to install such a box or not, but under pressure from major corporations the majority in the European Parliament want to make their permanent use compulsory for all.

It’s the purest hypocrisy: at the first presentation in the EP of the system known officially as ‘eCall’, it immediately emerged that the thing hasn’t yet actually ever worked properly. They have had some experience with it in the Czech Republic, but there too it proved difficult for emergency services to process all of the incoming messages from the boxes. In such a case you’d think ‘let’s first of all get some experience of this’. But no, the box must come and everyone will have to use it. That’s weird.

What these people really have up their sleeves was revealed when we got to the privacy aspects of the matter. Not only does the box call emergency services, it also maintains a permanent record of where you’ve been driving, how many seatbelts were in use at any given time, and the weight of the vehicle with passengers and so on. This information is also handed automatically to emergency services, which in practice comes down to the police, fire brigade and ambulance. If the system worked properly, you could get more rapid assistance in the event of an accident. Of course that would be great, but if you don’t want all of these other data being a matter of permanent record, you should be able to detach the system. The majority in the EP, however, oppose this, which is rather strange for a parliament that is always saying how much value it attaches to the protection of privacy.

The real reason for the haste and the compulsory character of the proposed law has nothing to do with saving lives. The Googles of this world find it enormously interesting to be able to record who drives where and with how many people on board. That sort of information is from an advertising point of view worth its weight in gold. Applications have already been developed which make the box available for commercial ends. That’s what this is all about, and the EP is still not insensitive to such a commercial lobby.

In my view, the driver stays the boss, and anyone who wants to make use of the box should be able to do so. In a number of years, if and when the emergency services system has been adapted, it could be useful, if you should be unfortunate enough to have an accident and, for example, need an ambulance there as quickly as possible. On the other side of the argument is the fact that emergency services and goodness knows who else will have immediate access to all sorts of personal data. That’s a consideration also, and each person will probably weigh things up differently. All good reasons to fit the gizmo with an on-off switch. The centre-right EPP and the social democrats oppose this, however, sensitive as ever to the industry lobby. You should know that when you decide who to vote for on May 22nd.