Texting and driving are becoming big campaigns globally for awareness and definitely with reason. Someone people don’t even look when they are walking and crossing the street. There are apps that help in locking your phone when it detects movement over a certain speed and apps that can send automatic responses indicating your are unable to answer at the moment.
Law enforcement use breathalyzers to quickly test for the presence of alcohol and now a new technology is months away from being tested in New York… a textalyzer.
Technology
The technology is being developed by an Israel-based company called Cellebrite. According to public information, law enforcement officers will plug this into a person’s phone for up to a minute and it will do a quick scan of all texts, web surfing history, and emails to see if the device was used before a serious crash.
Privacy
I see huge amounts of potential misuse, violations of privacy, and potential false positives with this very new and immature technology. They claim it will only provide access to phone usage and not personal material, but that information is still present and they go hand in hand.
Compliance
Under the proposed NY bill, people who refuse could have their driving licenses suspended. Yikes!
Big brother is watching.