EU has secret plan for police to 'remote stop' cars

EU has secret plan for police to 'remote stop' cars The EU is developing a secret plan to give the police the power to control cars by switching the engine off remotely

The European Union is secretly developing a "remote stopping" device to be fitted to all cars that would allow the police to disable vehicles at the flick of a switch from a control room.

Confidential documents from a committee of senior EU police officers, who hold their meetings in secret, have set out a plan entitled "remote stopping vehicles" as part of wider law enforcement surveillance and tracking measures.

"The project will work on a technological solution that can be a 'build in standard' for all cars that enter the European market," said a restricted document.

The devices, which could be in all new cars by the end of the decade, would be activated by a police officer working from a computer screen in a central headquarters.

Once enabled the engine of a car used by a fugitive or other suspect would stop, the supply of fuel would be cut and the ignition switched off.

The technology, scheduled for a six-year development timetable, is aimed at bringing dangerous high-speed car chases to an end and to make redundant current stopping techniques such as spiking a vehicle's tyres. The proposal was outlined as part of the "key objectives" for the "European Network of Law Enforcement Technologies", or Enlets, a secretive off-shoot of a European "working party" aimed at enhancing police cooperation across the EU.

Statewatch, a watchdog monitoring police powers, state surveillance and civil liberties in the EU, have leaked the documents amid concerns the technology poses a serious threat to civil liberties

"We all know about the problems surrounding police stop and searches, so why will be these cars stopped in the first place," said Tony Bunyan, director of Statewatch.

"We also need to know if there is any evidence that this is a widespread problem. Let's have some evidence that this is a problem, and then let's have some guidelines on how this would be used."

The remote stopping and other surveillance plans have been signed off by the EU's Standing Committee on Operational Cooperation on Internal Security, known as Cosi, meaning that the project has the support of senior British Home Office civil servants and police officers.

Cosi, which also meets in secret, was set up by the Lisbon EU Treaty in

2010 to develop and implement what has emerged as a European internal security policy without the oversight of MPs in the House of Commons.

Douglas Carswell, the Conservative MP for Clacton, attacked the plan for threatening civil liberties and for bypassing the parliament.

"The price we pay for surrendering our democratic sovereignty is that we are governed by an unaccountable secretive clique," he said.

Nigel Farage, the leader of Ukip, described the measure as "incredible" and a "draconian imposition".

"It is appalling they are even thinking of it," he said. "People must protest against this attack on their liberty and vote against an EU big Brother state during the Euro election in May."

In 2012, Enlets received a £484,000 grant from the European Commission for its declared mission to "support front line policing and the fight against serious and organised crime by gathering user requirements, scanning and raising awareness of new technology and best practices, benchmarking and giving advice".

The six-year work programme for Enlets also includes improving automatic number plate recognition technology and intelligence sharing. Although the technology for police to stop a vehicle by remote control has still to be developed, Enlets argues the merits of developing such a system.

"Cars on the run can be dangerous for citizens," said a document. "Criminal offenders will take risks to escape after a crime. In most cases the police are unable to chase the criminal due to a lack of efficient means to stop the vehicle safely."

The introduction of stopping devices has raised questions of road safety. David Davis, the Conservative MP for Haltemprice and Howden, warned that the technology could pose a danger to all road users.

"I would be fascinated to know what the state's liability will be if they put these devices in all vehicles and one went off by accident whilst a car was doing 70mph on a motorway with a truck behind it resulting in loss of life," he said.

"It is time legislators stopped believing technology is a form of magic and realised that is fallible, and those failures do real harm."

Reply to
BurfordTJustice
Loading thread data ...

We already have this in the US. It's called OnStar.

Reply to
Moe DeLoughan

Per Moe DeLoughan:

OnStar can stop a vehicle's engine?

Reply to
(PeteCresswell)

no it just reduces max speed to 10 MPH.

The new talking cars that communicate with one another could also report the driver is being reckless or is speeding. Generating a ticket automatically.

Reply to
bob haller

It can, if you give the company permission to enable the feature. It also has a slow-down option. Both options are available on cars manufactured from 2009 onwards with OnStar.

The question is whether the company would ever agree to enable those options without an owner's permission, if law enforcement asked the company to do it.

Reply to
Moe DeLoughan

The answer is simple. Ground out the wire going to the antenna.

Reply to
gfretwell

Government wants you to broadcast your driving data?eventually Traffic safety agency preparing regs on vehicle-to-vehicle communications. by Sean Gallagher - Feb 3 2014

The US Department of Transportation's National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has announced that it's finally ready to consider regulations that might require "light vehicles" to communicate with each other about their speed, direction of travel, and location in order to prevent collisions. The technology, called vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) could by some government estimates reduce traffic fatalities by as much as 80 percent if it's ever fully rolled out.

The emerging V2V standard, which Ars recently looked at in depth, is based on a broadcast networking protocol similar to those used by Wi-Fi networks, GPS geolocation technology, and in-car sensors that detect rate of turn, braking, and other movement data. V2V-equipped cars continuously broadcast information in what's sort of a digital version of the swimming pool game Marco Polo, warning drivers if another vehicle?s broadcasts show a risk of a collision.

V2V technology comes with a number of technical and policy challenges that could blunt any major push to mandate it too quickly or broadly. Privacy, squabbles over radio spectrum, and the cost of the vast scale of the infrastructure (ensuring the security of the system and integrating it with highway infrastructure) are among the major pain points that need to be addressed, or at least considered, before a regulation can be put into effect.

In collaboration with a consortium of auto makers, the NHTSA recently completed a year-long trial of the technology in Ann Arbor, Michigan, using 3,000 V2V-equipped vehicles.

Full article at

formatting link

Reply to
Moe DeLoughan

I don't care if I die. It's better than telling them which direction I'm going.

Reply to
micky

I rather love the idea of eventually - once a combination of a traffic control system and self-driving cars comes into being - not having to worry about driving. Just get in the car, read, rubberneck, whatever. But there's a heckuva lot of details to be worked out before that can come to pass. Security is the biggie. The potential for hackers to get in and target individual vehicles for crashes or to create havoc with all cars in any given physical area has to be addressed.

Reply to
Moe DeLoughan

I realize it is fiction and all, but the most recent King & Maxwell book by David Baldacci put out exactly that scenario.

Reply to
Kurt Ullman

I like your quote. On this subject, my favorite is from Mark Twain:

"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics."

- Mark Twain's Own Autobiography: The Chapters from the North American Review

Reply to
Lab Lover

Per Moe DeLoughan:

New Yorker Magazine, Nov 25 2014 "Auto Correct: Google's Self-Driving Car".

My takeaway was that we will see fully-autonomous self-driving cars available to the public before 2020, probably sooner.

Reply to
(PeteCresswell)

Hope they make cars that deliver painful shocks when the driver tailgates, or fails to dim high beams.

Reply to
Stormin Mormon

Maybe, but I'll be too old to enjoy it.

I might have it, but I won't enjoy it.

Reply to
micky

HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.