Driving Into the Future: Data SIMs

While data SIMs continue to be a mystery to a large number of people, in the business realm they are making headway and working to become a permanent fixture. The most recent developments to come focus on the idea of tracking and a ‘Big Brother’ state where the police are able to track cars and their owners without prior consent.

By 2015, all cars will be fitted with this device which is, to all intents and purposes, the equivalent of a black box but for cars instead of aeroplanes. The device, to be fitted with a SIM card that works in the same way that mobile telephone SIM cards work; they will be able to send and receive data over the mobile networks. This opens up the possibility of being able to track cars and their owners with alarming accuracy: the speed, direction and location of the car.

The role of these SIM cards will be two-fold: when the car is involved in an accident, the SIM card will automatically contact the emergency services; when the police have ‘reasonable doubt’ with regards to the threat of the driver of the car, the device can be used as a tracking device. There have been several questions over driver privacy immediately raised – especially following the comments of the vice-president of marketing and sales at Ford which had to be rapidly apologised for – as the UK has the potential here to start on the slippery slope to a ‘Big Brother’ society.

Several counties’ police departments have already been questioned with regards to their current practice with tracking devices. City of London, Thames Valley, Merseyside, Northamptonshire and Essex have all been asked about their policies for tracking members of the public, all of them refused to answer, arguing the grounds of threat to national security. This is the only acceptable response if you wish to avoid answering this question; but it is by no means an automatic admission. Nottinghamshire on the other hand, along with Hertfordshire, were quite happy to respond openly and honestly – they do not track their drivers.

The only way that police are currently able to track drivers, should they need to, is to use cameras that are commonplace around the country as well as on the mobile police vans. The major problem that this system poses is quite simply that should a driver avoid the network of cameras, they are unable to be tracked.

These SIMs are already present in a series of BMWs, Citroens and Volvos and EU regulations will demand that by 2015 all new cars are fitted with the devices. There are many lines of red tape that need to be cut through first, the question of driver privacy being one of the main problems, but once all of those are answered these little data cards should prove extremely beneficial to reaching conclusions about accidents.

Data SIMs can be used for a variety of data sharing needs, if you are interested in learning more, contact EuroDigiTel.