Published: 04/11/2009 00:00 - Updated: 10/11/2009 09:46

00-no! Spy box in car idea is ‘a non-starter’

by ADRIAN JENKINS

EUROCRATSʼ plans to fit ʻspy boxesʼ in all cars have been slammed by Burtonʼs biggest driving school and the townʼs taxi chief.

They spoke after Burton Euro MP Philip Bradbourn revealed that the proposal had been recommended by a three-year study for the European Commission.

He claimed the black box gadgets would send 20 separate items of information, such as speed, destination and direction, to a central monitoring hub up to every few seconds.

Officials thought the devices would help reduce road accidents and congestion, but the Tory said they would more likely be used to implement ‘pay-as-you-drive’ road charges and branded them ‘another affront to our civil liberties’.

Janet Churchley, joint owner of Burton’s LDC School of Motoring, in Borough Road, agreed, fuming: “It’s ridiculous and Big Brother gone mad. Why on earth would you want everybody knowing where you were going and what you were doing?

“If employers choose to use it for their staff I don’t see this as a bad thing; but I would not want to think that everybody would have to have one – not private people.

“The main thing is privacy and who is going to be able to get hold of the information.

“If you are a 17-year-old girl doing a regular route on a regular basis and the wrong sort of person got hold of the information then anything could happen to you.

“It would also prove that you were not indoors so if the wrong sort of people got hold of the information they would know exactly when you were out.”

Mrs Churchley said the authorities were already making enough money from speed cameras and should use the proceeds to put more police officers on the streets to solve problems.

Mohammed Ikhlaq, chairman of Burton Private Hire and Taxi Association, which represents most of the East Staffordshire Borough Council-registered taxi drivers, was also non-plussed.

He said: “It’s well over the top.

The whole idea of having a taxi is the privacy and I don’t think you would have freedom of speech any more because everything would be noted.

“How comfortable will people feel if they know that their conversation is being listened to by a third party?”

Mr Ikhlaq said the black boxes would not prevent poor driving and that satellite navigation systems already helped cut congestion.

Mr Bradbourn said he was ‘astonished and outraged’ by the proposed ‘spy in the car’ devices which were ‘another step towards a society of total surveillance and Government monitoring’.