EU Secretly Plans To Put a Back Door In Every Car By 2020

An anonymous reader writes "A secretive EU body has agreed to develop a device to be fitted to all cars allowing police to cut off any engine at will, it emerged today. The device, which could be imposed within a decade, would also allow police to track a vehicle's movements as well as immobilise it. According to The Daily Telegraph a group of senior EU officials, including several Home Office mandarins, have signed off the proposal at a secret meeting in Brussels."

What could possibly go wrong?

[onkelonkel]

About 5 minutes after this is implemented, the protocols will be cracked. About 5 minutes later some prankster will be broadcasting the "kill" signal to every car in Paris from a lunchbox portable radio from the top of the Eiffel tower.

"According to The Telegraph..."

[newcastlejon]

Call me when they release these "classified documents", name the "mandarins" concerned and find someone who can give a more reasoned opinion than Nijel "why does this man deserve equal coverage on the BBC?" Farage, otherwise I'll just assume this is just more of The Telegraph's usual anti-EU ranting.

Oh, look, the Mail's covering it too.
Fancy that.

For heaven's sake, there's more than enough EU bumbling going on as it is without editors concocting more of their own.

Re:Say what?

[compro01]

Mandarin

(informal, UK) A senior civil servant.

Re:Secret meetings:

[xaxa]

Considering the two sources given are the Daily Mail and the Telegraph, it's safest to assume this is lies until someone finds a reliable source.

(Two newspapers that make their profitis by getting "middle Englanders" angry. )

Dailymail story on EU: Guaranteed to be wrong

[Paul Jakma]

Dear Slashdot,

You've posted a story from the Dailymail that has the form "EU wants to do outrageous thing!". The Dailymail has a long track record of:

a) Hating the EU.

b) Printing utter falsehoods about supposed plans "the EU" has, at least in their headlines and leading text.

E.g., a previous instance, which I complained to the PCC about (who turn out to be toothless and/or cowards): http://paul.jakma.org/2011/11/... [jakma.org] .

Please do not feed the Dailymail troll.

Mostly nonsense

[Grumbleduke]

This story is mostly nonsense.

There's a thing called ENLETS (or European Network of Law Enforcement Technology Services), which is meant to be "the leading European platform that strengthens police cooperation and bridges the gap between the users and providers of law enforcement technology." From what I can tell it is a sort of advisory committee of law enforcement technology experts, working through Europol, who brainstorm how to use technology to help law enforcement stuff. Currently it gets about €600k in funding, mostly from the EU, some from the UK and the Netherlands. They're asking for that to be increased to €915k. Most of that seems to be in hiring some new full-time advisers; from their personnel costs, they want about 8 people working full time; a leader, a policy officer, and admin person and 5 senior advisers. So if they don't get their budget increase, there's a good chance none of this stuff will happen.

This article is based on a "secret" document (which I think is this one [netzpolitik.org]), which is a (draft?) work programme for the group for 2014-2020; so what they're supposed to be looking at.

This document stems from a recommendation by the Council of the European Union that ENLETS look into this kind of thing - the instructions etc. can be found here [europa.eu] (or if that doesn't work, search for document 12103/13 on their search page [europa.eu]). They asked ENLETS to monitor and coordinate the development of new technologies.

The actual "secret" document is listed on the Council's website (do a search for 17365/13) as "Law Enforcement Technology Services (ENLETS) 2014 - 2020 - Work programme", but the document itself isn't accessible. I don't know whether that's because it's such a minor report (and not really an official EU thing) that they haven't bothered uploading it, or if they are claiming it should be withheld; I'm tempted to make a formal request for it to see what they say.

The five short-term goals they have been asked to look at are in some places a bit scary:

1. Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) - ANPR is well established in many MS. In 2013/14 ENLETS will support those MS who feel the need to enhance their capabilities by sharing best practices. The ANPR systems will be measured by its maturity, capabilities and their deployment.
2. Open Source Intelligence - Open source intelligence is a prioritized topic due to the evolving internet and wireless communication systems. For law enforcement it is a source of information as well as a method of communication. Open source intelligence relates to frontline policing (events, crowd control) and criminal investigations (search for evidence, monitoring and surveillance). In this project the handling of open sources will be assessed and ranked.
3. Signal Intelligence - Law Enforcement Agencies (LEAs) deploy many kinds of sensors, mostly connected to their IT systems. The sensors need to enhance the operational capability of the LEAs, but often the integration of these sensors and IT systems cause technological problems. Frequently sensor data cannot be integrated, stored or displayed due to the design, protocols and construction of IT systems. What kind of signal intelligence is the most operationally effective and open for integrating the sensors in the EU? What kind of concept will be needed as ever more data is forwarded for processing and more information needs to be analysed?
4. Surveillance - Surveillance uses many types of technology. In this topic focus will be on sharing the best video systems (quality, performance in several scenarios). The purpose of this topic is to match the best standards in video used by the industry to the end user requirements. Privacy enhanced technology and transparency are key issues.
5. Remote St

Re:Secret meetings:

[mspohr]

BBC also: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/worl... [bbc.co.uk]

The BBC story also includes a link to the actual EU document (pdf) stating the work program.

It's already here.

[Grog6]

All cars with fly-by-wire tech can be turned off remotely, as well as any GM with onstar.

Already done years ago.

Re:Secret meetings:

[Paul Jakma]

Note that this is taking place under the auspices of the Council of European Union [wikipedia.org], i.e. directly at the behest of the member state governments. The document mentions "Remote Stopping" just once:

Remote Stopping Vehicles
Cars on the run have proven to be dangerous for citizens. Criminal offenders (from robbery to a
simple theft) will take risks to escape after a crime. In most cases the police are unable to chase
the criminal due to the lack of efficient means to stop the vehicle safely. This project starts with the
knowledge that insufficient technology tools are available to be used as part of a proportionate
response. This project will work on a technological solution that can be a “build in standard” for all
cars that enter the European market.

So there's nothing agreed, there's nothing that is going to be imposed. The technology doesn't even exist. All they're doing is they're going to look to see what they could develop. Once they've done that, that doesn't mean it will be imposed. This working group doesn't have that power. If the public doesn't like it, the *member state* politicians (not EU politicians!) who make the decisions at the Council of the EU level would not put it forward. Even if these *state* politicians *did* want to impose this, they'd still need the agreement of the European Parliament (with its directly elected MEPs). The EP can delay and even block legislation (though, that requires a super-majority, ultimately).

tl;dr: the Dailymail are, as usual, blowing out their arse and making shit up about what's happening at the EU.