Orwellian or necessary/inevitable? Cameras, tracking devices

[bradly1101]

I saw an ad for Progressive car insurance. It featured a tracking device for your car that presumably will help you get better rates for safer driving (and location?) Its users will drive safer and slower because they want to keep their rates low. The tracking device has a pacifying effect.

In Boston we saw how fast the bombers were identified by cameras and quickly tracked down. I don't think anyone's going to try that again (like that anyway). So here they worked, but is all the other surveillance worth the rare times its really needed like this?

I do a happy dance by spinning my wheelchair when I see my honey after not having seen him in a while. The last time I did that I looked up and saw that we were in sight of two cameras, although otherwise no one noticed. I realized it might look like weird/crazy behavior to someone tasked with protection. Before I would do that again I might check for cameras.

The most powerful FBI surveillance software can covertly download files, photographs and stored e-mails, or even gather real-time images by activating cameras connected to computers, say court documents and people familiar with this technology.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/busin...a174-5397-11e3-9e2c-e1d01116fd98_story_3.html

Do cameras and tracking devices have a pacifying effect on society? Is that good? Is it Orwellian?

Edit: I wouldn't act silly in front of someone wearing Google Glass.

 

[Doppel]

It is pacifying and orwellian. It can be good, and it is also bad.

I regularly orate to my immediate co-worker how crimes are going to be increasingly hard to get away with. You think murder is hard now? Try 20 years from now when everywhere you go is tracked by GPS in more ways than it is today, when pattern recognition can pull suspects out of a pool of GPS users simply based on strange behavior, when everywhere you go in public is run against facial recognition.

We are on the cusp of aggressive driving being snuffed out forever. Eventually all our insurance will be tied into specific driving behavior based on GPS. You refuse it, enjoy your thousand/month insurance bill. Thankfully this will tie in quite nicely with a growing prevalence of autonomous vehicles. It won't be long before driving as we know it is irrevocably changed, and infinitely for the better; safety, efficiency all skyrocket when we remove people from the equation, then they can text to their heart's content. All the major auto brands are putting money into this.

 

[Vic]

Progressive snapshot does not track driving behavior like speeding or aggressive driving. It's usage based and tracks miles driven.

 

[PrinceofWands]

While it can be utilized for good it is inherently invasive and vile.

 

[senseamp]

I am interested in mileage based car insurance since I don't drive my car much.

 

[bradly1101]

Progressive snapshot does not track driving behavior like speeding or aggressive driving. It's usage based and tracks miles driven.

Oops, my bad, so I guess my point is mostly about the cameras.

 

[bradly1101]

It is pacifying and orwellian. It can be good, and it is also bad.

I regularly orate to my immediate co-worker how crimes are going to be increasingly hard to get away with. You think murder is hard now? Try 20 years from now when everywhere you go is tracked by GPS in more ways than it is today, when pattern recognition can pull suspects out of a pool of GPS users simply based on strange behavior, when everywhere you go in public is run against facial recognition.

We are on the cusp of aggressive driving being snuffed out forever. Eventually all our insurance will be tied into specific driving behavior based on GPS. You refuse it, enjoy your thousand/month insurance bill. Thankfully this will tie in quite nicely with a growing prevalence of autonomous vehicles. It won't be long before driving as we know it is irrevocably changed, and infinitely for the better; safety, efficiency all skyrocket when we remove people from the equation, then they can text to their heart's content. All the major auto brands are putting money into this.

I would quite like the transportation system featured in Minority Report, but not that approach to crime.

 

[bradly1101]

Progressive snapshot does not track driving behavior like speeding or aggressive driving. It's usage based and tracks miles driven.

Wait in the ad Flo says it rewards your safe driving. Hmmm.

 

[rudeguy]

Progressive snapshot does not track driving behavior like speeding or aggressive driving. It's usage based and tracks miles driven.

Its main focus is sudden stops/excessive braking.

Another fear mongering thread gone wrong.

 

[Vic]

Wait in the ad Flo says it rewards your safe driving. Hmmm.

According to http://www.progressive.com/auto/snapshot-how-it-works/

- how often you slam on the brakes;
- how many miles you drive;
- and how often you drive between midnight and 4 a.m.

Snapshot plugs into the OBDII port and does not have GPS (that would require clear line of sight to the satellites).

 

[bradly1101]

According to http://www.progressive.com/auto/snapshot-how-it-works/

- how often you slam on the brakes;
- how many miles you drive;
- and how often you drive between midnight and 4 a.m.

Snapshot plugs into the OBDII port and does not have GPS (that would require clear line of sight to the satellites).

Thanks I was too lazy to search.

 

[rudeguy]

Thanks I was too lazy to search.

Yet you made a thread on it...

 

[Triumph]

Funny thing about this driver tracking, it's sold as "saving you money." Hah. That only works if only a few people have it. Imagine if everyone had it, do you think everyone's rates would be lower? Does anyone believe that Progressive would gladly choose to make less money in exchange for safer drivers? LOL!

As far as Orwellian overwatch, it is inevitable, sadly. Us "older" folks (I'm 35) are hesitant about it because we remember a time when it wasn't like this, so at the very least, we're resistant to change. Those younger than me are growing up from the womb with a different understanding of privacy. They're surrounded by cameras that see you and cell phones that track you, and are completely accustomed and desensitized to it. I give it 25 years before nobody even talks about a "right to privacy." The discussion will only be about "safety." Kind of like how things are in Neckbeard's United Kingdom. Only much worse.

 

[boomerang]

Funny thing about this driver tracking, it's sold as "saving you money." Hah. That only works if only a few people have it. Imagine if everyone had it, do you think everyone's rates would be lower? Does anyone believe that Progressive would gladly choose to make less money in exchange for safer drivers? LOL!

Exactly right. Early adopters will save some dough for a while and then things will return to normal. It's a gimmick.