No Expectation of Privacy in Data Collected by Vehicle "Black Box"

A New York trial judge has ruled that evidence gleaned from a car's "black box" is admissible in a second-degree murder trial against two men involved in a fatal three-car collision in Nassau County, New York. In People v Slade No. 0666-2003, Judge Honorof of the Nassau County Supreme Court considered whether the accused had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the data collected by the black box (termed a "sensing diagnostic module") which included vehicle speed, engine revolutions, throttle position, use of brakes and whether the driver was wearing a seatbelt in the critical moments before impact. The court decided that since the car was traveling on a public highway, the accused driver had relinquished any expectation of privacy in the data. Although Canadian privacy law has not often considered this point, in 2003, a Quebec court admitted black box evidence in the trial of a man who was convicted of dangerous driving based on that evidence. In R c Gauthier [2003] JQ no 19314, the court rejected a challenge under section 8 of the Charter of Rights that the search and seizure of the black box was unreasonable. For the New York Law Journal article on People v Slade, visit: http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1105364095740. A CBC News backgrounder on R c Gauthier can be found at: http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/blackbox/. Summary by: Jason Young