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Article
Your Privacy on the Road: What is Collected and How it is Utilized
The Journal of Law and Technology at Texas (2022)
  • Melanie M. Reid
Abstract
This article discusses government surveillance of the highways and Fourth Amendment implications in the Autonomous Age. Surveillance and tracking tools such as GPS devices, license plate readers, traffic light cameras, and persistent surveillance systems, are much more intrusive, detailed, and comprehensive than ever before. The government has access to where travelers are going, who is in the car, at what speed they are traveling, and at what time of the day they chose to travel. Cars now contain their own artificial intelligence systems in their hardware and software, sensors, cameras, radars, etc. This paper evaluates the amount of evidence readily available for the government to collect in preparation for criminal prosecutions and ask whether the third party doctrine applies to such information. Similarly, this paper explores the changes in defense strategies when defendants are presented with traffic violations such as speeding, running a red light, even drunk driving charges. Will the autonomous car become one with the human driver defendant or is the car to blame? Will the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination apply to the self-driving car’s actions? This paper seeks to explore such criminal procedure consequences in the Autonomous Age.
Keywords
  • autonomous vehicles,
  • Fourth Amendment
Disciplines
Publication Date
2022
Citation Information
https://jolttx.com/2022/04/11/your-privacy-on-the-road-what-is-collected-and-how-it-is-utilized/