#195: Textalyzer

Tech Policy Podcast

TechFreedom

Technology

4.8 • 45 Ratings

🗓️ 12 September 2017

⏱️ 21 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

When it comes to tech policy, New York seems to lead the way in… interesting ideas. The government has an important role in making sure our roads are safe for driving. This means there’s nothing abnormal about a police officer checking their blood alcohol levels with a breathalyzer. But the “textalyzer” is a different animal: law enforcement scanning phones to see if drivers were “texting” before an accident raises a host of privacy and cybersecurity concerns, among other issues. Manufactured by Cellebrite, an Israel-based tech company, the textalyzer is still months away from coming to market. But New York is considering legislation that would authorize law enforcement to use the textalyzer when it’s available for purchase. Are these types of searches legal under current case law, and what would they mean for civil liberties? Evan is joined by Dan King, an Advocate at Young Voices. For more, see his op-ed.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the Tech Policy Podcast. I'm Evan Swartzstraver. On today's show, texting and driving,
0:11.4	as New York looks to crack down on texting and driving in an effort to reduce vehicular accidents,
0:17.1	are they trampling on privacy? And what is this new textilizer technology that might be coming out in the next few months? And how should New Yorkers and others around the country be thinking about this? Is there a tension between trying to crack down on accidents while protecting the privacy of citizens, given that so much of their lives are now on
0:38.2	their phones.
0:39.2	Joining me to discuss this is Dan King, an advocate at Young Voices.
0:42.4	Dan, thanks for joining the show.
0:43.6	Thanks for having me, Evan.
0:44.6	So before we jump into the topic, this is the first time we've had someone from Young Voices.
0:48.4	I am familiar, but listeners might not be.
0:50.1	What is Young Voices?
0:51.0	So Young Voices is a nonprofit group that connects the next generation of media
0:56.2	talent with media organizations and podcasts like yourself. All right. Well, there you go. And I'm friends
1:01.8	with a few of your writers and keep up the good work. And maybe we'll link to some of that in the show
1:06.1	notes. So, you know, this is New York, right? I'm a native New Yorker as are you.
1:11.0	And I often joke that New York leads to the country in stupid ideas.
1:15.8	I've done at least a few podcasts just because New York proposed a terrible stupid law, even though I like to think my audience is all over the country, maybe some all over the world.
1:26.0	But really, New York just is constantly
1:28.5	coming up with amazing ideas. And this one's pretty great, right? So what is textilizer? It sounds
1:34.5	like breathalizer, and I'm going to guess that's not a coincidence. Oh, not a coincidence at all.
1:38.9	It's essentially a breathalyzer for your cell phone. So it looks like a tablet. And what happens is if you get in a
1:47.3	car accident, police can plug your phone into this tablet-looking device. The device then scans your
1:54.7	phone, all the contents of it. They're working on putting some privacy protections into it.
	...

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