Warning: Your car may be spying on you

An increasing number of motorists are being monitored,  their movements constantly tracked and recorded by devices in their vehicles without their knowledge or consent.  One New Jersey lawmaker believes there should be controls on how this information is shared.

Assemblyman Paul Moriarty is sponsoring legislation that would limit access to the data recorded by motor vehicle recording devices, such as event data recorders and black boxes, that are in most new cars and trucks on the road.

Under the bill, no one except the owner of the vehicle, or the owner's representative, may retrieve or use the data unless permission is granted by the owner or a subpoena is issued by a court.

"These devices record everything you do - from when you accelerate to when you decelerate, when you brake and when you put on your blinker," said Moriarty (D-Turnersville). "I believe that this information should be owned by the person that owns the car. There should be some regulation as to who can have access to this information."

Moriarty stressed we need to get ahead of the technology curse, which is rapidly expanding, sometimes without our knowledge.

"With these black box data recorders in all new cars, it's possible that when you take your car in for inspection or repairs, that someone can access that and take all that information and use it in a way that you might not want," Moriarty said.  "It's your data.  It's your car. You should have access to it and you should own it unless there's a subpoena or a real reason why that information should be shared with other people."

One concern that Moriarty has is that the data could be used by police to retroactively issue tickets. He said the information should only be available to law enforcement if they have a valid subpoena.

The bill also prohibits the alteration or deletion of data on a recording device after a car accident that results in a serious injury or a fatality for a period of two years following the crash.

"Most people don't even realize this type of information is being collected. "We should have a law that is forward-looking, so that people can feel that their data is intact, that they own it. And it's not something that can be shared with everyone, so everybody knows exactly how they're driving, when they put on a blinker, when they hit the brake," Moriarty said.

The measure has been approved by the Assembly Consumer Affairs Committee and now heads to the full Assembly for consideration.