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EU Developing Remote Shutdown Tech For All Cars

european_commission

Recent reports show that European Union officials have been meeting to develop a system to help law enforcement remotely kill any cars engine. The tech would rely on a central control facility which would effectively send a kill code to the car’s engine, shutting it down entirely.

This technology is nothing new of course, many car companies offer a remote vehicle shut-down feature, but the efforts of the EU police officials is to make this kind of technology a standardized feature that would be controlled by the police, not by the car manufacturer.

Of course a standardised system like this would take years to integrate and would no doubt raise many concerns with the general public. Even members of parliament are not happy about the project and stated that “the price we pay for surrendering our democratic sovereignty is that we are governed by an unaccountable secretive clique.”

Liability could be a big issue, what if the systems are triggered by mistake while a car is travelling at speed? What about invasion of privacy, could this be the beginning of more monitoring of drivers, perhaps even location monitoring software would be used to not only shut-down a car, but to track its location “in case of theft”. Some of the thoughts that spring to mind are a little tinfoil hat brigade, but in light of many spying revelations of the last few years, it’s hardly a big stretch to come to some wild conclusions.

On an engineering level the technology already exists, so it’s not too hard to believe that it can be scaled up and standardised. It will no doubt do wonders for reducing car thefts on newer cars, but it seems it will come with a whole new set of problems for car owners.

Thank you The Verge for providing us with this information.

 

Peter Donnell

As a child in my 40's, I spend my day combining my love of music and movies with a life-long passion for gaming, from arcade classics and retro consoles to the latest high-end PC and console games. So it's no wonder I write about tech and test the latest hardware while I enjoy my hobbies!

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2 Comments

  1. an engine kill command will only work on cars bikes that rely heavily on ECU’s. Older cars bikes will not be effected by this.
    As I’ve said before, the cannot use this on motorbikes as the risk of loosing power unexpectedly can be catastrophic.
    though to be fair, i think on a moral basis, i don’t think this sort of tech should be aloud..

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