Toyota used to have a "talking car" option. If you opened your car door with your headlights were still on, the car would announce (in a feminine yet mechanical "voice") "Lights are on."
In most neighborhoods.
In Black neighborhoods, the car says, "Hey man, yo' lights is on.
"I said, your lights is on, man! "
"Whut da fuk, you blind AND deaf?"
This Car Can Talk. What It Says May Cause Concern.
By JOHN SCHWARTZ
ast year, Curt Dunnam bought a Chevrolet Blazer with one of the most popular new features in high–end cars: the OnStar personal security system.
The heavily advertised communications and tracking feature is used nationwide by more than two million drivers, who simply push a button to connect, via a built–in cellphone, to a member of the OnStar staff. A Global Positioning System, or G.P.S., helps the employee give verbal directions to the driver or locate the car after an accident. The company can even send a signal to unlock car doors for locked–out owners, or blink the car's lights and honk the horn to help people find their cars in an endless plain of parking spaces.
A big selling point for the system is its use in thwarting car thieves. Once an owner reports to the police that a car has been stolen, the company, which was started by General Motors, can track it to help intercept the thieves, a service it performs about 400 times each month.
But for Mr. Dunnam, the more he learned about his car's security features, the less secure he felt. A research support specialist at Cornell University, he is concerned about privacy. He has enough technical knowledge to worry that someone else – say, law enforcement officers, or even hackers – could listen in on his phone calls, or gain control over his automotive systems without his knowledge or consent. Any gadget that can track a carjacker, he reasons, can just as readily be used to track him.
"While I don't believe G.M. intentionally designed this system to facilitate Orwellian activities, they sure have made it easy," he said.
OnStar is one of a growing number of automated eyes and ears that enhance driving safety and convenience but that also increase the potential for surveillance. Privacy advocates say that the rise of the automotive technologies, including electronic toll areas, location–tracking devices, "black box" data recorders like those found on airplanes and even tiny radio ID tags in tires, are changing the nature of Americans' relationship with their cars.
Beth Givens, founder of the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, said the car had long been a symbol of Kerouac–flavored freedom, and a haven. "You can talk to yourself in your car, you can scream at yourself in your car, you can go there to be alone, you can ponder the heavens, you can think deep thoughts all alone, you can sing," she said. With the growing number of monitoring systems, she said, "Now, the car is Big Brother."
