EU police want ‘remote kill switch’ on every car
by alethoRT | January 30, 2014
The
EU is considering making mandatory the equipping of all cars sold in
the union with devices, which would allow police to remotely disable
engines, according to leaked documents.
If
the plan goes as planned, European law enforcers will be able to stop
fugitives, suspected criminals and even speeding drivers with a simple
radio command from a control room.
The
technology is part of a six-year development plan by the ‘European
Network of Law Enforcement Technologies’, or Enlets, a working group for
police cooperation across the EU, reports the Telegraph.
"Cars on the run can be dangerous for citizens," the newspaper cites a document leaked by state power watchdog Statewatch.
"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," it says.
Remote
control of car electronics is far from novel. A modern car is equipped
with a network of microcomputers, which monitors and controls everything
from ignition and flow of fuel to radio station being played. And
increasingly cars can communicate wirelessly, a technology called
telematics.
Loan
firms and car dealerships have been using the benefits of
electronically-controlled cars for years. A vehicle sold in the subprime
market can be equipped with a black box, which reminds the client of
overdue payments with honking horns and flashing lights and would
disable the engine completely a few days later, unless the money is
paid. And a GPS receiver would tell the dealership the exact location
where the car can be collected.
Remote
tracking and control is also used as anti-theft measure. Services like
General Motors’ Stolen Vehicle Slowdown can force a stolen car to drop
speed and stop on a remote command from the service provider.
Giving
police the ability to do the same to any car in the EU does not thrill
some rights advocates cautious of giving the government more authority.
"We
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," Statewatch told the Telegraph.
Apart
from that, there is a concern of possible hacker attacks, which could
use the remote kill switch for nefarious ends. In March 2010 Texas
police arrested a former car dealership employee, who used its car
tracking and repossession system to disable some 100 vehicles in Austin
in revenge for being laid-off.
Researchers
from the University of California, San Diego and Washington University
tested how much harm hacking can do to a car’s electronic controller.
The study conducted in 2010 showed that a criminal can relatively easily
interfere with safety-critical systems like brakes.
The
security of connected cars has not become hacker-proof since. At the
2014 Consumer Electronics Show this month, technology firm Harman warned
that hacking problems for modern cars are very serious because the
infrastructure of their electronic components was not designed with
networking in mind, so they are not ready for the level of exposure to
cyber-attacks that internet connectivity brings.
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