E-ZPass privacy issues

[Formerly Steve Wilkinson]

The E-ZPass (automatic toll-payment transponder) that I use in my 911SC is supposedly "assigned" to that car and that car only--or whatever group of cars I choose to register it for), yet I use it in dozens of un-owned cars a month, since I drive lots of cars as a car writer. We've also gone through a number of personally owned cars since it was first registered, about eight years ago, and I haven't bothered to update the list of our four--currently--active license plates.

E-ZPass insists that I use it only in cars for which it's registered, or at least they try to do so by periodically reminding me to furnish them with the license numbers of the cars in which it's being used. This is of absolutely no relevance to them in terms of E-ZPass violation enforcement, since the system photographs the license plate of whichever car is passing through an E-ZPass lane without paying. (I've received a number of snapshots of the rear end of the SC on New Jersey's Garden State Parkway, where the E-ZPass system is famously faulty.) They only reason they want to know exactly which car it's in is for potenital surveillance reasons, which has already happened to some people--i.e. they want to know exactly what toll booths a specific car went through at exactly what time and place, if a crime has been committed and that car is suspected of having taken part in it.

A question for the civil rights lawyers out there: Do I have the right to tell E-ZPass that it's none of their business which car I'm using the transponder in, as long as the device pays the toll successfully, or can they demand that I install what is essentially a surveillance device in my private car(s)?

Stephan

[Rot 911]

Interesting queston Stephan and hopefully the moderators won't move this too soon. Seems to me you can analogize the EZ pass with a pre-paid subway card. Nothing stops a person from letting anyone else use their subway card. The state, or whomever else is issuing the pass, would have to show a legitimate purpose in the requirement of requiring purchasers to disclose what car they use the pass in.

[Paul_Heery]

I'm not a lawyer and I don't know about the civil rights issues. But, I do know that it is explicitly spelled-out in the EZ-Pass agreement that you have to register the cars that the tag is going to be used in. Fortunately, the NY EZ-Pass system allows you to update your information online.

You mentioned New ****** Jersey. About a year after the EZ-Pass system had been installed in the Garden State, they admitted that they planned on funding it through the fees from toll violations. They also admitted that numerous bogus violation notices were sent out in the hopes that people would not question them and just pay them . How about that for a violation of my rights?? I received 13 toll violation notices one month for a car that had been registered and the tag had been properly mounted. All of the notices had a nice picture of the rear of my car. I sent them a letter telling them that they were wrong and they dismissed the violations. I now have license plate covers on the front and rear of my car that do not allow a picture of the plate number to be taken from an angle. I haven't gotten a violation notice since I have had the covers installed.

[Joe Bob]

And people complain about California....

WE just passed a law that bans stop light cameras being installed on the basis of revenue collection. They have to be installed in an area that has documented excessive accidents caused by red light infractions....what a concept....

[304065]

Steve,

Although I'm a lawyer admitted to practice in New York State what I'm about to tell you isn't a matter of law, it's my opinion.

If you put the EZ-pass in your car, you are implying your consent to being tracked for surveilance purposes. The implied consent doctrine is pretty old-school: the state provides you a privilege and in return for the exercise of that privilege, you VOLUNTARILY forego all or a portion of a CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT for the state's convenience.

An example: in many states, the failure to submit to a blood alcohol level test adminstered at the request of a law enforcement officer is an automatic six points (or whatever it takes to revoke your license). You have the constitutional right not to offer incriminating evidence against yourself (Amdt. V) and protection against unreasonable search and seizure (Amdt. IV) and a few other broad rights of "privacy" that emanate from the bill of rights. (We can debate the "penumbra rights doctrine" on another OT thread. . . )

Nobody is forcing you to give evidence of your physical person in the form of a blood, urine or breath sample. If you don't want to submit to the test, you don't have to.

But if you don't, you will surrender the privilege of driving and be hard-pressed to get it back. And in a few states you may be subject to various civil penalties, e.g. for refusal to submit to a preliminary breath test at roadside.

There are a few old cases that are the origin of modern legal thought-- my favorite is Rochin v. Califorina (34 U.S. 165 (1952). Antonio Rochin was suspected of posessing narcotics. The cops broke in and before they could stop him, Rochin swallowed a few capsules. The cops took him to a hospital where they pumped his stomach and recovered the drugs, which were used to bust him. Justice Black, in a famous opinion, overturned his conviction, saying, of the behavior of the cops, "This is conduct that shocks the conscience." They went too far. Along those lines, it is generally NOT constitutionally permissible to take evidence from peoples bodies without their consent. (But there are a few execptions along the way, e.g., patient comes in from a MVA, unconscious, blood sample taken in the ordinary course of medical treatment, held to be OK)

It is incredibly more complex than I have time or space to explain, but the theory is, you take the privilege, you give up the right. Same goes for TV cameras in public places, which they have in the UK and probably will have here soon, despite the bleatings of the ACLU, because they work so well. There is no substantive expectation of privacy in public place, like a city street, or in a subway car. Don't want to be watched, don't go there! The legitimate state interest in preventing assault, robbery, etc., OVERRIDES whatever privacy expectation one may have.

And the same thing goes, IMNSHO, for the woman who wanted to wear a veil for her drivers license photo. Amdt. I guarantees religious freedom, and is one of the key differentiators of the USA's concept of ordered liberty from opressive regimes around the world! But wearing clothing of any type that prevents facial recognition, no! You want to exercise your religious freedom, take the bus, so goes the doctrine.
http://www.courttv.com/trials/freeman/backgrounder_ctv.html

So that's my opinion in a nutshell. I always thought that the reason you had to update your license plate numbers against the tag number was so if the tag malfunctioned, you wouldn't get a violation notice in the mail- they would correlate the photo against your license plate number of record and quash the violation notice. . .at least that's the way it's SUPPOSED to work!

By the way, don't take this as meaning that I think it's GOOD or DESIRABLE that they share this information with law enforcement, just that they CAN.

[Joe Bob]

Nice post John......

This was discussed at our family dinner.....we have banned discussion of politics, unions and religion....

How about the tracking of individuals via equipment OWNED by the public? Cell phones that scream "here I am" or the On Star system that GM has in 95% of the new SUVs and luxury cars?

I'm not paranoid....yet....but is this not an area where Big Bro could watch you as well and even more closely?

[masraum]

Another somewhat related function of EZpass. Not only do they track you when you are on a toll road, but the can probably track you all over the city. Here in houston we have a live traffic map that shows colors for certain speeds for all of the major freeways, http://traffic.tamu.edu/incmap/

How do they get the speed information? They track people with EZ pass with sensors all over the city.

[304065]

Mike, good point about location-based services. I used to cover the communications software sector, worked with a lot of companies using information from the network (e.g. which cell you're in or signal strength triangulation, all of which information is required to make the "cellular" network function properly) to enhance the consumer experience. E.g. you are two blocks away from The Gap, your cellphone beeps with a coupon for 10% off for The Gap, with a map to its location. Convenient. And frightening.

How about the mobile 911 technology? Your cellphone is only registered to your home area code, right? So if you make a 911 call outside that zone, you are calling the 911 service for a different location than where you are. Aha, say the engineers, let's put a GPS chip in the phone that will track a few satellites and give us highly accurate position information to within a few meters of the user's location! That way we can route the 911 call to the correct local authorities.

What really bakes my noodle is this: after the proliferation of location-based services like the above, how long will it be before some STATIST, overzealous law enforcement agency begins using location data for surveilance purposes, pursuant to a lawfully obtained search warrant? They bust Mr. Perp for heinous crimes, thanks in part to knowing exactly where to pick him up. Aloysius T. Longhair, Esq., Attorney and Counselor and card-carrying member of the ACLU, sues, claiming that the state violated Perp's legitimate privacy expectations by using his location information, because Perp never expected that his cellphone carrier would "drop dime" (pun VERY intended). Attorney for the state Winston Smith, Esq., argues that the fact that location-based services have been standard on every cellphone for years now, and that Perp acknowlwedged and agreed that his location would be provided to third parties like The Gap and the National Security Agency when he signed his service contract, that Perp HAD NO substantive expectation of privacy when his cellphone was powered up!

This will happen sooner than any of us think, particularly in the currrent climate.

[greglepore]

Steve, bottom line is that using EZ Pass is a "privledge" not a "right" (as is a drivers license in most states) and accordingly, you have to play by their rules.

As to the post above on the GPS cellphones, they are already marketing "teenager trackers" that you can buy to tell where you're kids are. Interesting from a public safety perspective, scary from a civil rights one.

[pete911]

My EZ Pass came with a foil bag that blocks the signal if I don't want to use it. Just keep it in there.

Pete

[Hugh R]

I've read that new $100 bills have a "chip" in them and that the Feds can now, or will in the near future, be able to tell how much money you have on you when you go through security at the airports, how's that for illegal searches.

[Formerly Steve Wilkinson]

Thank you all, particularly John Cramer, who took the time to provide lots of billable info. I get the picture now.

Stephan

[Rick Lee]

Hugh, knowing how much money I have on me is probably the least of the Feds' invasions while in an airport. But the same story goes - you don't want to get searched, grilled, frisked? Then don't fly or get on a private plane.

[304065]

I never heard that about the "Chip" in the $100 bill. I do wonder whether that's technically possible but given the widespread availability of RFID (radio frequency ID technology) it's probably not too far off. How's that for privacy: you buy stuff at Wal-Mart, don't have to go through checkout, you just walk out of the store and your credit card is automatically charged. But wait, arent the RFID chips supposed to turn off when you take the stuff home? http://www.rfidjournal.com/

I just had to go through some recurrent training for my securities license, and it included a whole test on money laundering. Traveling with currency in the amount of $10,000 or more has to be reported to the government, that's probably why they would want to track actual cash. Like it or not, illegal types are obsessed with moving large amounts of cash around, whether to hide the proceeds of ill-gotten gain or finance terrorist activity.

Paranoia? No way. Commercial Off The Shelf reality.

[singpilot]

I have a funny story about my EZ-Pass. I ordered 3 of them for my 3 cars. On my way to work, I picked up my mail, and they were there, so I put them in my briefcase and went to work.

As I remember, it was LAX - EWR for a night, BOS the next day, MIA for a day, DFW for a day, then back to LAX.

My first statement showed toll booth passes on all 3 cars simultaneously in each of those cities (in the hotel van or rental car).

The bimbette at the master toll agency (in ****** Joisey) had a hard time with the concept.

It took a written letter, answered by a computer, and the passage of several months for someone somewhere to realize that an error had occurred, and several more months for them to rebate the charges.

[niner11]

Singpilot, I have noticed that hotels have similar technology as well. When they give you that plastic room key it is possible for them track what time the crew gets back from "dinner". This stuff is probably only the begining but I can't agree with much of what the ACLU does.

[RickM]

Stephan,

Sounds like the basis for a good book or at least an article....
entitled "Is it 1984 yet?"

[Chuck Moreland]

My only experience with these devices;

Visiting a freind who had the service, we took a trip in my car so he brought his device so we could zip through the toll. Sure enough the device did not work.

Plate was photographed and I received a letter imposing a fine in the mail.

I called them up and explained what happened. They said to have the owner of the device call. He did, and the fine was removed. I don't know if they gave him heat about using it in my car.

Needless to say, I'm not real impressed.

[vash]

fasttrak, as it is call here in california. is starting a system to track where we travel to as well. i got a letter stating this. they want to use the info to improve traffic conditions. i guess they are installing "readers" everywhere. with the letter, they enclosed an envelope that renders the transponder invisible if we didnt want to participate. i thought it was a PITA to constantly mess with pulling it out at toll booths, so i said eff it. i got nothing to hide.

[gaijinda]

Is there a statue of limitations for speeding?? It is only a matter of time before e-z passes are used for speed enforcement... I have a pile of old e-z pass statements that show the times I entered the NYS Thruway, and the times I got off - with an average spped higer than 65MPH!