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— Oscar Wilde.
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Tracking Every Move You Make_ Can Car Rental Companies Use Technology to Monitor Our Driving_
Tracking Every Move You Make: Can Car Rental Companies Use Technology to Monitor Our Driving?
As many readers will already know, the Gps Satellite System (GPS) functions a number of major advantages. It can help with driving directions, or help find a stolen car. It can improve safety by allowing emergency rescue services in order to the originating location of cell phone “911” calls. And, if installed in school buses, it can tell parents exactly when a bus is approaching their home so children do canrrrt you create to wait in the rain or snow for long.
How this do as? GPS consists from the group of 24 satellites, which continuously transmit microwave signals regarding locations at given minutes. Through analysis on the data arriving from various satellites, a GPS receiver can determine its own location (for instance, whether it’s in a car, it may possibly determine the car’s location). And in case your GPS device has a transmitter, also as a receiver, will probably also broadcast its place to third part.
Does GPS have a down undesirable? Unfortunately, the answer may be yes – and web-sites Connecticut Supreme court ruling illustrates why.
Fortunately, however, a few simple legal measures may help to mitigate the problem with businesses’ involving GPS. (The more troubling use of GPS via government, however, is beyond this column’s scope.) And most states –including New York, Connecticut and California — have already enacted legislation restricting the automobile rental industry’s ability employ GPS information in certain ways.
The Recent Connecticut Case: Revealing One Company’s Surprise Use of GPS
First, here are the Connecticut case. It arose because American Car rental had protection of charging its clients $150 for “excessive wear and tear” to the rental car, each time they drove over 79 miles every hour.
American knew exactly when that occurred because its subsidiary, Acme Rental, used GPS big its cars to monitor renters’ speed as they traveled. Whenever GPS reported that the customer drove not less than 80mph read more than two minutes inside a time, the particular charged the customer’s debit or credit card $150.
This happened as follows: Wireless technology transmitted the vehicle’s location, as a point of GPS, into a tracking company. The tracking company faxed the to Acme, which – with the rental customer’s credit card on file — posted a $150 charge towards the card. Sometimes, this process was repeated numerous particular times. And sometimes, like a result, customers had their credit or debit cards rejected by retailers since their credit limit was overtaken.
Did the company alert customers to this policy beforehand? Not prominently.
Buried within fine print of the rental contracts was a clause praoclaiming that “Vehicles driven in overabundance of the posted speed limit will be charged $150 per occurrence. All our vehicles are GPS equipped.” (Acme eventually replaced the words “posted speed limit” with “79 mph.”)
In the contract, no explanation of the GPS is, or of methods the customer would be charged, was given. Nor was “occurrence” defined to explain that just two minutes of speeding would count – or that drivers could be charged for an apparently limitless associated with such two-minute periods, even within a single trip.
Some customers apparently received a verbal explanation within the policy. GPS Tracking , however, never.
What about when consumer was driving? Was there any warning then that the plan was being enforced? Correct. The customer, mainly because the court explained, “received no indication how the GPS device was transmitting information,” with indication of a charge to his or her fx card.
The Connecticut Supreme Court’s Ruling: An Illegal Contractual Penalty
Common intuition suggests the $150 charge – and, especially, the sum of multiple $150 charges – is beyond their budget. And fortunately, the court interpreting anything here agreed.
Under the law of contracts, “liquidated damages” – that is, reasonable contractual estimates of actual damages – are permissible. But penalties – excessively amounts designed to punish contract breaches, outside of compensating these – aren’t.
The Connecticut Supreme Court rightly deemed the $150 fee a problem (and also another stylish violation of this Connecticut Unfair Trade Practices Act).
In support of its holding, it noted these striking findings: An administrative hearing officer had determined, based regarding testimony associated with expert witnesses, that real cost of excess wear associated with driving one amongst the rental car company’s cars at 80 miles every hour for two continuous minutes was closer to 37 cents, than $150.
Based on these calculations, Justice David Borden noted that “[t]he $150 collected by [American Rental] was more than 400 times the potential damage suffered.” Justice Borden also noted that “a customer would must be travel extra than 1,070 miles at high speeds, without decelerating below 80 miles per hour, to [actually] cause $150 of excess wear during the vehicle.”
And complaintant who did drive that far at that speed would still be overcharged, the judge noted. In reality, the buyer would experienced to decelerate to fuel up, meaning he would actually incur multiple $150 charges (each time he accelerated to 80), not merely the one.
Finally, the Justice added, a renter who drove at 80 for two minutes, so a renter who drove at 80 for half an hour, would incur probably the most beneficial same $150 charge.
According into the court, more or less everything indicates that the charge still did not reasonably correlate to actual vehicle wear and tear, and thus was meant to penalize the driver, never to compensate an additional for actual harm to your rental automobile.
A California GPS-Related Surcharge Action Has also Been Initiated
Meanwhile, the California attorney general also recently took administrative action against trendy rental company that used GPS information to surcharge its men and women.
The company’s rental contract reportedly disclosed the fact that a higher mileage charge would apply if a rental car was driven regarding your state. The same company apparently did not disclose that GPS information would be applied to enforce compliance.
In addition, the rental company apparently advertised unlimited mileage (no per-mile charges), without disclosing that the mileage for you to be driven strictly within geographic guidelines.
Companies’ Involving GPS, With Clear Notice Legally-Required, Could be A Great idea
How far should a rental company (or an insurance company) have the to go in monitoring our driving patterns using tracking technology? And in case companies use GPS, and other system, to monitor our driving, how clearly must they provide us notice of their plan conduct so earlier?
In my opinion, legislation should require clear notice whenever GPS is through a company.
Fine print is not enough, and nor is partial or ambiguous disclosure: The notice in an automotive rental or insurance contract ought to be clear, prominent, and in order to mention GPS specifically. (Perhaps the company’s cars ought also to deal with a prominent sticker on the dashboard alerting the driver to the existence of of GPS, and warning how could possibly be enjoyed.)
GPS-Plus-Wireless Transmitters: Why the mixture May Invade Privacy
It’s it’s no wonder that companies want to couple GPS with wireless transmitters. Here are a few examples of why:
A GPS-plus-transmitter system enable a trucking company monitor whether its employees are obeying speed limits and driving-hours limits, and taking their required rest getaways.
Using any system may aid insurance and/or vehicle companies in giving discounts to people who do not speed; possibly adding (small, reasonable) penalties to the bank notes of those who do; and finding stolen cars. (Companies should you should never assume, however, that a 3 day speeder can be a scofflaw: Many drivers need to speed as well as then keep pace with other cars in traffic.)
GPS could be useful if you’re considering curbing truly reckless driving such as speed racing. Rental car companies might have the ability to prohibit certain drivers from car rentals if these kinds of are repeatedly driving in overabundance of the speed limit.
But think about the cost, when looking privacy? Though tracking completed openly and consensually – as I’ve suggested ought to be legally required – the transmission of location data in live may reveal more this consumer has bargained for.
A consumer might think GPS is actually being installed to recover his car if stolen, but in fact, it usually is used for marketing and pricing purposes – to find out how far a given driver typically drives, believed she uses her car, and the speed she trips.
More disclosure is around a partial solution to possible lack of customer exposure to how GPS-plus-transmitter systems can and will be exercised. But it may not act as a complete solution, as I will explain.
GPS-Plus-Transmitter Data May Only Further Expand Intrusive “Digital Dossiers”
As I discussed in the prior column, information-filled digital dossiers already exist on each amongst us – established on information we give to private companies and that’s the government. Information we give to private companies may, the particular future, discover the government’s dossiers on us too.
Do not enough want vehicle rental agency collecting data that may allow tracking of the restaurants we eat at, the hotels we sleep in, as well as the addresses we visit? Probably not. Yet if results from search engines like Zabasearch – which utilizes satellite photos to show particular addresses – were combined with transmitted GPS data, a user profile of an individual’s entire work and social life could be constructed by a private company for its dossier. (I wrote in more detail about Zabasearch in an earlier column). That seems very undesirable – and even potentially destructive.
Instituting policies of purging information regarding specific routes taken – and retaining information only as to hurry and duration of trip – might be one strategy to address the “digital dossier” fear.
Legislation In a number of States Restricts Rental Car Company GPS Use
Perhaps online site part for this kind of privacy concern, the California and Connecticut legislatures have enacted laws restricting the ability of leasing companies to use GPS information.
In California, for instance, car rental companies will no longer use GPS information to impose surcharges, fines or penalties relating on the renter’s regarding a leased vehicle.
GPS information may, however, be by simply a California rental company to help find a stolen, abandoned or missing vehicle. Common must be clearly and conspicuously disclosed to the rental customers.
GPS information also may be used by a California car rental company “for the sole purpose of determining the date and time the vehicle is returned to the rental company, and the total mileage driven and automobile fuel regarding the returned vehicle.” Such determinations in a position to made “only after than ever before has returned the vehicle to the rental small business.”
In addition, a rental vehicle could include electronic surveillance technology for remote locking or unlocking of the vehicle at the request for this renter. Vehicle roadside guidance is also permitted at the renter’s receive.
New York has legislation that also prohibits hire car companies by using GPS information “to determine or impose any costs, fees, charges or penalties on a certified driver for such driver’s use in the rental vehicle,” subject with regard to an exception for the recovery of “a vehicle that is lost, misplaced or thieved.”
Other states are currently contemplating similar legislation. These states are right to think about the use to which rental companies may put GPS or other tracking the computer industry. That said, however, they should not ban all attempts to correlate risk with a driver’s behavior by using tracking inventions. To do so would rob us of some within the potentially positive benefits of the activities: safer driving, and, one would hope, fewer accidents.
Beyond Informed Consent: Immediately a Privacy-Free Society?
When you are thinking about GPS – especially GPS-plus-transmitter systems – informed consent should be, legally, vital before consumers’ movements are tracked. But is informed consent a sufficient amount of?
As I have indicated, it really is a difficult devinette. On the one hand, simply requiring informed consent alone will predictably increase road safety, and decrease accidents. It’ll allow drivers to receive fairer pricing for rentals and insurance – pricing that accords with their actual habits, not solely those of the typical driver.
On another hand, however, legislators in states for instance California and New York are correct to scrutinize the involving GPS vehicle rental industry, and to try and craft a public policy that balances the benefits associated with the technology with privacy concerns. As our society becomes less private, despite our consent at each step, the sum of the all those steps may mean in addition, it becomes less free.
As many readers will already know, the Gps Satellite System (GPS) functions a number of major advantages. It can help with driving directions, or help find a stolen car. It can improve safety by allowing emergency rescue services in order to the originating location of cell phone “911” calls. And, if installed in school buses, it can tell parents exactly when a bus is approaching their home so children do canrrrt you create to wait in the rain or snow for long.
How this do as? GPS consists from the group of 24 satellites, which continuously transmit microwave signals regarding locations at given minutes. Through analysis on the data arriving from various satellites, a GPS receiver can determine its own location (for instance, whether it’s in a car, it may possibly determine the car’s location). And in case your GPS device has a transmitter, also as a receiver, will probably also broadcast its place to third part.
Does GPS have a down undesirable? Unfortunately, the answer may be yes – and web-sites Connecticut Supreme court ruling illustrates why.
Fortunately, however, a few simple legal measures may help to mitigate the problem with businesses’ involving GPS. (The more troubling use of GPS via government, however, is beyond this column’s scope.) And most states –including New York, Connecticut and California — have already enacted legislation restricting the automobile rental industry’s ability employ GPS information in certain ways.
The Recent Connecticut Case: Revealing One Company’s Surprise Use of GPS
First, here are the Connecticut case. It arose because American Car rental had protection of charging its clients $150 for “excessive wear and tear” to the rental car, each time they drove over 79 miles every hour.
American knew exactly when that occurred because its subsidiary, Acme Rental, used GPS big its cars to monitor renters’ speed as they traveled. Whenever GPS reported that the customer drove not less than 80mph read more than two minutes inside a time, the particular charged the customer’s debit or credit card $150.
This happened as follows: Wireless technology transmitted the vehicle’s location, as a point of GPS, into a tracking company. The tracking company faxed the to Acme, which – with the rental customer’s credit card on file — posted a $150 charge towards the card. Sometimes, this process was repeated numerous particular times. And sometimes, like a result, customers had their credit or debit cards rejected by retailers since their credit limit was overtaken.
Did the company alert customers to this policy beforehand? Not prominently.
Buried within fine print of the rental contracts was a clause praoclaiming that “Vehicles driven in overabundance of the posted speed limit will be charged $150 per occurrence. All our vehicles are GPS equipped.” (Acme eventually replaced the words “posted speed limit” with “79 mph.”)
In the contract, no explanation of the GPS is, or of methods the customer would be charged, was given. Nor was “occurrence” defined to explain that just two minutes of speeding would count – or that drivers could be charged for an apparently limitless associated with such two-minute periods, even within a single trip.
Some customers apparently received a verbal explanation within the policy. GPS Tracking , however, never.
What about when consumer was driving? Was there any warning then that the plan was being enforced? Correct. The customer, mainly because the court explained, “received no indication how the GPS device was transmitting information,” with indication of a charge to his or her fx card.
The Connecticut Supreme Court’s Ruling: An Illegal Contractual Penalty
Common intuition suggests the $150 charge – and, especially, the sum of multiple $150 charges – is beyond their budget. And fortunately, the court interpreting anything here agreed.
Under the law of contracts, “liquidated damages” – that is, reasonable contractual estimates of actual damages – are permissible. But penalties – excessively amounts designed to punish contract breaches, outside of compensating these – aren’t.
The Connecticut Supreme Court rightly deemed the $150 fee a problem (and also another stylish violation of this Connecticut Unfair Trade Practices Act).
In support of its holding, it noted these striking findings: An administrative hearing officer had determined, based regarding testimony associated with expert witnesses, that real cost of excess wear associated with driving one amongst the rental car company’s cars at 80 miles every hour for two continuous minutes was closer to 37 cents, than $150.
Based on these calculations, Justice David Borden noted that “[t]he $150 collected by [American Rental] was more than 400 times the potential damage suffered.” Justice Borden also noted that “a customer would must be travel extra than 1,070 miles at high speeds, without decelerating below 80 miles per hour, to [actually] cause $150 of excess wear during the vehicle.”
And complaintant who did drive that far at that speed would still be overcharged, the judge noted. In reality, the buyer would experienced to decelerate to fuel up, meaning he would actually incur multiple $150 charges (each time he accelerated to 80), not merely the one.
Finally, the Justice added, a renter who drove at 80 for two minutes, so a renter who drove at 80 for half an hour, would incur probably the most beneficial same $150 charge.
According into the court, more or less everything indicates that the charge still did not reasonably correlate to actual vehicle wear and tear, and thus was meant to penalize the driver, never to compensate an additional for actual harm to your rental automobile.
A California GPS-Related Surcharge Action Has also Been Initiated
Meanwhile, the California attorney general also recently took administrative action against trendy rental company that used GPS information to surcharge its men and women.
The company’s rental contract reportedly disclosed the fact that a higher mileage charge would apply if a rental car was driven regarding your state. The same company apparently did not disclose that GPS information would be applied to enforce compliance.
In addition, the rental company apparently advertised unlimited mileage (no per-mile charges), without disclosing that the mileage for you to be driven strictly within geographic guidelines.
Companies’ Involving GPS, With Clear Notice Legally-Required, Could be A Great idea
How far should a rental company (or an insurance company) have the to go in monitoring our driving patterns using tracking technology? And in case companies use GPS, and other system, to monitor our driving, how clearly must they provide us notice of their plan conduct so earlier?
In my opinion, legislation should require clear notice whenever GPS is through a company.
Fine print is not enough, and nor is partial or ambiguous disclosure: The notice in an automotive rental or insurance contract ought to be clear, prominent, and in order to mention GPS specifically. (Perhaps the company’s cars ought also to deal with a prominent sticker on the dashboard alerting the driver to the existence of of GPS, and warning how could possibly be enjoyed.)
GPS-Plus-Wireless Transmitters: Why the mixture May Invade Privacy
It’s it’s no wonder that companies want to couple GPS with wireless transmitters. Here are a few examples of why:
A GPS-plus-transmitter system enable a trucking company monitor whether its employees are obeying speed limits and driving-hours limits, and taking their required rest getaways.
Using any system may aid insurance and/or vehicle companies in giving discounts to people who do not speed; possibly adding (small, reasonable) penalties to the bank notes of those who do; and finding stolen cars. (Companies should you should never assume, however, that a 3 day speeder can be a scofflaw: Many drivers need to speed as well as then keep pace with other cars in traffic.)
GPS could be useful if you’re considering curbing truly reckless driving such as speed racing. Rental car companies might have the ability to prohibit certain drivers from car rentals if these kinds of are repeatedly driving in overabundance of the speed limit.
But think about the cost, when looking privacy? Though tracking completed openly and consensually – as I’ve suggested ought to be legally required – the transmission of location data in live may reveal more this consumer has bargained for.
A consumer might think GPS is actually being installed to recover his car if stolen, but in fact, it usually is used for marketing and pricing purposes – to find out how far a given driver typically drives, believed she uses her car, and the speed she trips.
More disclosure is around a partial solution to possible lack of customer exposure to how GPS-plus-transmitter systems can and will be exercised. But it may not act as a complete solution, as I will explain.
GPS-Plus-Transmitter Data May Only Further Expand Intrusive “Digital Dossiers”
As I discussed in the prior column, information-filled digital dossiers already exist on each amongst us – established on information we give to private companies and that’s the government. Information we give to private companies may, the particular future, discover the government’s dossiers on us too.
Do not enough want vehicle rental agency collecting data that may allow tracking of the restaurants we eat at, the hotels we sleep in, as well as the addresses we visit? Probably not. Yet if results from search engines like Zabasearch – which utilizes satellite photos to show particular addresses – were combined with transmitted GPS data, a user profile of an individual’s entire work and social life could be constructed by a private company for its dossier. (I wrote in more detail about Zabasearch in an earlier column). That seems very undesirable – and even potentially destructive.
Instituting policies of purging information regarding specific routes taken – and retaining information only as to hurry and duration of trip – might be one strategy to address the “digital dossier” fear.
Legislation In a number of States Restricts Rental Car Company GPS Use
Perhaps online site part for this kind of privacy concern, the California and Connecticut legislatures have enacted laws restricting the ability of leasing companies to use GPS information.
In California, for instance, car rental companies will no longer use GPS information to impose surcharges, fines or penalties relating on the renter’s regarding a leased vehicle.
GPS information may, however, be by simply a California rental company to help find a stolen, abandoned or missing vehicle. Common must be clearly and conspicuously disclosed to the rental customers.
GPS information also may be used by a California car rental company “for the sole purpose of determining the date and time the vehicle is returned to the rental company, and the total mileage driven and automobile fuel regarding the returned vehicle.” Such determinations in a position to made “only after than ever before has returned the vehicle to the rental small business.”
In addition, a rental vehicle could include electronic surveillance technology for remote locking or unlocking of the vehicle at the request for this renter. Vehicle roadside guidance is also permitted at the renter’s receive.
New York has legislation that also prohibits hire car companies by using GPS information “to determine or impose any costs, fees, charges or penalties on a certified driver for such driver’s use in the rental vehicle,” subject with regard to an exception for the recovery of “a vehicle that is lost, misplaced or thieved.”
Other states are currently contemplating similar legislation. These states are right to think about the use to which rental companies may put GPS or other tracking the computer industry. That said, however, they should not ban all attempts to correlate risk with a driver’s behavior by using tracking inventions. To do so would rob us of some within the potentially positive benefits of the activities: safer driving, and, one would hope, fewer accidents.
Beyond Informed Consent: Immediately a Privacy-Free Society?
When you are thinking about GPS – especially GPS-plus-transmitter systems – informed consent should be, legally, vital before consumers’ movements are tracked. But is informed consent a sufficient amount of?
As I have indicated, it really is a difficult devinette. On the one hand, simply requiring informed consent alone will predictably increase road safety, and decrease accidents. It’ll allow drivers to receive fairer pricing for rentals and insurance – pricing that accords with their actual habits, not solely those of the typical driver.
On another hand, however, legislators in states for instance California and New York are correct to scrutinize the involving GPS vehicle rental industry, and to try and craft a public policy that balances the benefits associated with the technology with privacy concerns. As our society becomes less private, despite our consent at each step, the sum of the all those steps may mean in addition, it becomes less free.
Introduce Yourself (Example Post)
This is an example post, originally published as part of Blogging University. Enroll in one of our ten programs, and start your blog right.
You’re going to publish a post today. Don’t worry about how your blog looks. Don’t worry if you haven’t given it a name yet, or you’re feeling overwhelmed. Just click the “New Post” button, and tell us why you’re here.
Why do this?
- Because it gives new readers context. What are you about? Why should they read your blog?
- Because it will help you focus you own ideas about your blog and what you’d like to do with it.
The post can be short or long, a personal intro to your life or a bloggy mission statement, a manifesto for the future or a simple outline of your the types of things you hope to publish.
To help you get started, here are a few questions:
- Why are you blogging publicly, rather than keeping a personal journal?
- What topics do you think you’ll write about?
- Who would you love to connect with via your blog?
- If you blog successfully throughout the next year, what would you hope to have accomplished?
You’re not locked into any of this; one of the wonderful things about blogs is how they constantly evolve as we learn, grow, and interact with one another — but it’s good to know where and why you started, and articulating your goals may just give you a few other post ideas.
Can’t think how to get started? Just write the first thing that pops into your head. Anne Lamott, author of a book on writing we love, says that you need to give yourself permission to write a “crappy first draft”. Anne makes a great point — just start writing, and worry about editing it later.
When you’re ready to publish, give your post three to five tags that describe your blog’s focus — writing, photography, fiction, parenting, food, cars, movies, sports, whatever. These tags will help others who care about your topics find you in the Reader. Make sure one of the tags is “zerotohero,” so other new bloggers can find you, too.
The Blogging of Allison 894 