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Op-Ed: Biden cancels consumer consent
Leslie Corbly | Libertas Institute
“But hang on,” you might say, “What’s the big deal? So you give up a
little privacy – it’s not for nothing, is it? After all, there are lives
at stake!”
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 President Joe Biden’s infrastructure legislation, passed in November, 2021,
undercuts consumer privacy.
Buried in the legislation is a requirement that car manufacturers create a new
monitoring system for cars by the year 2026. The bill requires new systems to
“passively monitor” a driver’s performance to identify whether a driver is
impaired.
Biden’s fall legislative achievement will cause car manufacturers to direct
research and innovation to the development of a system that will regularly track
and store a vast amount of personal information through systems that could
manifest as breathalyzer test, retinal eye scans, or touch tests on a car’s
ignition.
It's bills like these that ought to make us wonder 'Who asked for this?' Most
often, the truth is, no one. Consumer demand is rarely the impetus behind this
kind of innovation. It's regulation itself that drives these invasive
technological developments
Of course, consumer desire certainly drives technological innovation. But when
companies advertise new products to satiate consumer demand, they rarely
highlight the privacy implications of their products. As a general rule,
consumers like their privacy.
Biometric safety features greatly benefit insurance companies and governments
concerned with establishing legal liability or enforcing traffic codes. The
problem is how they’d essentially strong-arm citizens into complying with
personally invasive technologies or relying exclusively on public
transportation. Given the necessity of transportation and the lack of reliable
public transit in middle America, it’d be hard to argue that consumers who still
chose to drive cars even with these invasive features were actually consenting
to the government's newest “safety” demands.
“But hang on,” you might say, “What’s the big deal? So you give up a little
privacy – it’s not for nothing, is it? After all, there are lives at stake!”
While at first, invasive safety features seem like a small price to pay in
exchange for lower fatality rates on our nation’s highways, the issues run
deeper than a quantitative risk benefit analysis can indicate. Breathalyzers and
retinal eye scans utilize biometric technology. This technology catalogs an
individuals’ physical features in real time, meaning your average Joe would be
forced to allow a third party to store bodily data to operate a motor vehicle.
Preventing death is certainly a noble goal, but there are limits to the extent
human will can be overridden in the name of safety. Where’s the line? No one can
give a precise answer. This means the question should be openly and vigorously
debated, not buried in legislation that will only see the light of day in
fragmented segments over the course of years.
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Americans shouldn’t have to choose between reliable transportation and biometric
privacy. Indeed, most Americans are unaware this choice ever existed. If they
were, there’d probably be a great hue and cry against it. Polling shows the
American public is increasingly concerned with its lack of privacy rights,
particularly in digitally stored information.
Unfortunately, this recent government action valuing safety over privacy is only
one of many examples of technological innovations with troubling privacy
implications and virtually no public awareness.
The sad truth is regulations like Biden’s newest requirement for car safety pass
with little to no substantive media coverage. While Americans may be concerned
that their privacy rights are being eroded, most remain unaware of how
government regulations are shaping their reality. Public ignorance is
understandable in a media ecosystem focusing almost exclusively on issues that
feed perverse algorithmic incentives – where discussions of policy are
considered niche interests. Additionally, in the partisan news cycle, bad news
for Biden is bad news for media outlets committed to capitalizing on
confirmation bias.
A free nation cannot sustain itself if civil discourse in our current, click
bait culture. This is because freedom itself is rooted in consent and Americans
cannot vote their conscience when they remain unaware of the important practical
implications of laws and regulations under which they must live.
The unsustainability of our current circumstances is clear. Because trust and
consent go hand in glove, it should come as no surprise that as civil discourse
has eroded, so too has public trust in foundational social institutions. From
government to public health, Americans are increasingly skeptical of those in
power.
To make matters worse, political conversations are rife with conflict. Polls
show Americans are gripped by fear. Over 60 percent of Americans hold political
views they intentionally self-censor. This climate of fear also shapes
newsrooms. The Pew Research center found 41 percent of journalists reported
either avoiding newsworthy stories or soften the tone of their stories to
benefit their organization, not the public.
For democracy to flourish Americans must understand the world in which they
live. This will only happen if responsible media outlets and journalists are
willing to bring the public’s attention to the impact of regulation on everyday
life. The rampant fear of inquiry in American culture threatens to cancel
consent. Those who value freedom must not let this happen.
Leslie Corbly is a Privacy Policy Analyst with the Libertas
Institute in Lehi, Utah. She covers current events and affairs related to
privacy from the perspective of preserving individual rights and essential
liberties
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