This US law mandates that new cars have anti-drink driving tech. Critics say it’s a loss of privacy

Breath-sniffing sensors and finger-scanning detectors are central to a landmark U.S. drunk driving security mandate that raises difficult questions about what technology can be trusted.

The new federal law requiring new cars to recognize drunk drivers in the coming years could save thousands of lives annually and have the potential for expansion overseas, proponents say.

But the legislation signed by President Joe Biden this week has also questioned skeptics as to whether vehicles could refuse to operate based on a false positive or effectively witness their owners in criminal proceedings.

Ultimately, it is up to American regulators to decide what could become international precedents. They haven’t said much so far, but they may have three years to work with.

The first reaction, however, was euphoria for people battling alcohol-related accidents in the United States, which allows drivers to have higher levels of alcohol in their blood than many other industrialized nations, and the death toll continues to exceed 10,000 each year.

“I’m crying tears of joy today,” said Alex Otte, national president of the anti-drunkenness group MADD.

“This is the beginning of the end of the drunk driving,” she wrote in a statement following Biden’s signing ceremony at the White House on Monday.

Breath sensors and fingertip scans

The devil is in the details, of course, and since 2008 a collaboration between automakers and regulators has been developing one of the best ways to use functional technology to fulfill the mandate.

As part of the Driver Alcohol Detection System for Safety (DADSS), researchers have developed tiny valve-like sensors that draw in and test the driver’s exhaled air.

Another innovation measures the blood alcohol level under the skin’s surface by shining an infrared light through the person’s fingertip when the driver presses the ignition button.

Anti-cheat functions are integrated into the system, which in most US states could prevent the car from starting or moving, said Robert Strassburger, president of the Automotive Coalition for Traffic Safety (ACTS), which is supported by the car manufacturers .

“Completely unconstitutional”

The DADDS initiative is a partnership between ACTS and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration that did not respond to a request for comment.

“We all emit carbon dioxide when we exhale and as long as you are in a CO2 area, we know that the sample comes from the driver and nowhere else,” Strassburger told AFP.

With the touch system, the driver would complete a circuit between his seat and the system by pressing the ignition button.

“If the passenger reached over and touched the sensor, the circuit would not be closed and a (alcohol test) measurement would not be taken,” he said.

They are considered “passive” measures, as opposed to the pre-existing devices that require drivers to pass an alcohol test by blowing a tube before they can operate a vehicle – devices that some jurisdictions require individuals to do because of Have been convicted of drunk driving.

While some experts ultimately see the new technology with adequate protection and communication as positive, others see it as a worrying undermining of privacy.

Critics have their say

Laura Perrotta, president of the American Highway Users Alliance advocacy group, said alcohol testing technology is a good idea – as long as it works.

“Someone uses mouthwash and goes to turn their car on and can’t start it, but then someone else has had too much and they don’t recognize it,” she said. “That could be a real problem.”

Albert Fox Cahn, founder and executive director of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project’s monitoring group, said, “It is completely unconstitutional to have our cars confiscated in order to monitor us for the government.”

“This is no less illegal than for the government to require the phone company to install wiretapping devices in every home to ensure they don’t commit crimes in the future,” he added.

Strassburger, the ACTS president, said there are already privacy restrictions in place on other information-gathering technologies in cars and that police need an arrest warrant to gain access to them – but it won’t make the final decision on how to proceed.

“The automakers will make this final decision or they will be commanded by the policy makers,” he said.

For more information on this story, see the video at the top of the media player.

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