‘Textalyser’ device would let police immediately check phones of suspected distracted drivers
Ben Lieberman just wanted to find out what may have caused the head-on collision that killed his 19-year-old son, Evan, on a highway north of New York City. It took a lawsuit and six months in court to get the cellphone records showing the driver of the car his son was in had been texting behind the wheel.

Lieberman doesn’t believe getting that information should be so hard.

He’s channeling his grief over the 2011 accident into a proposal that would allow police at accident scenes in New York to immediately examine drivers’ cellphones with a device to determine if they’d been tapping, swiping or clicking. It’s been called a Breathalyzer for texting.

“You think people are already looking at phones and it just doesn’t happen,” said Lieberman, who is partnering with the Israel-based tech company Cellebrite to develop the plug-in device that’s been nicknamed the “textalyser.”

The idea already faces obstacles from constitutional and privacy advocates who are quick to note that police need the owner’s consent and a warrant to get cellphone records. They’re also concerned such technology would be used to access all of the personal information people may have on their cellphones.

“Every fender bender would become a pretense for gobbling up people’s private cellphone information, and we know that cellphones typically contain our entire lives,” said New York Civil Liberties Union Executive Director Donna Lieberman, who is no relation to Ben Lieberman.

At least 46 states have laws barring texting while driving and 14 ban all hand-held devices, but some safety advocates say more needs to be done to enforce the laws.

Deborah Hersman, the CEO of the National Safety Council and a supporter of the “textalyser” legislation, noted that in 2016, 40,000 people died on the road, a 14 per cent jump from 2014 and the biggest two-year jump in 50 years.

“There can’t be a more compelling reason than life or death for saying why we should have access to this information,” Hersman said.

Cellebrite said its technology, which is about nine months away from being finished, sidesteps privacy concerns because it’s designed only to determine usage, not access data. Company officials said the device would only be able to tell if someone physically clicked or swiped the phone during the time of the accident, and then investigators could use that to determine if they should get a warrant for more detailed information.

“For this device, the whole purpose is not to get any data,” said Jim Grady, the chief executive officer of Cellebrite USA. “So no, police won’t be able to, unless they rewrite our code.”

Under the bill, which has been approved in one Senate committee and is pending in another, a person would not be criminalised for refusing to have their phone checked, but they could get their license suspended. The idea is that a person implies consent to drive without distractions when they receive a license, said Jay Shapiro, a New York attorney and former deputy district attorney.

Sponsors say they expect the Republican-led Senate to approve the bill, but anticipate opposition from the Democratic-led Assembly.

Similar legislation is being considered in Tennessee, New Jersey and the city of Chicago.

After Ben Lieberman obtained the cellphone records, the driver of the car carrying Evan had his license revoked for a year. He was never charged with a crime.

Lieberman said he hopes the “textalyser” will serve as a deterrent and a way for law enforcement to begin tracking the scope of the problem.

“The last thing I want to do is be responsible for legislation that is going to infringe on someone’s privacy,” he said, “but I also don’t want to bury another child.”

 

No, they better get a warrant for everything or my lawyers will have them in courts for decades.

 

This is completely unnecessary. They have the ability to stop all cell phone use in vehicles by drivers if they really wanted to. For some strange reason cell phone use laws are not being enforced. Being a motorcyclist that commutes by bike on dry days, I see it all the time.
Police do not enforce cell phone laws, especially during rush hour.
All that is needed to stop cell phone use by vehicle operators is strict enforcement, accompanied by a thousand dollar mandatory fine for the first offense, two thousand for the second, ten thousand for the third. It would be eliminated from our roadways in six months.

 

I don't know the law in every ones locale but the Canadian Gov. did an end run around instituting texting and driving laws and introduced a distracted driving law. This includes everything from applying make up to eating a hamburger or attending children etc. Because it falls under the Highway traffic act and driving is a privilege you're guilty till proven innocent. If you are in an accident causing harm or god forbid death everything at the scene becomes evidence.

 

I don't own a cell phone. You think the cops would believe me? Nah, they'd go full on search
looking for a hidden phone.

 

And yet, I could eat a sub and drive a stick-shift and STILL be a better driver than many people with both eyes on the road and their hands on the wheel at 10 and 2.

On the other hand, one thing you won't find me doing is "driving while celling" (as I call it.). My motto has always been "Hang up and drive or pull over and talk."

 

In boston its a two part problem. You have pedestrians walking out into the street while looking at thier smart phones and then you have drivers come by looking at thier smart phones and they run over the pedestrians. I don't think any legislation will change anything. As always I think education is the key. Thats why I scream at my kids if I see them walking around with their face in thier phones

 

Mother's Day. Pontoon boat ride to lunch at the Walden Country Club. 8 people, 4 staring into their rectangle...

 

Family functions here at the house...more than half of them are at the tables staring at their own rectangles, but it does make for a quiet function at times.

 

The only bright side of this current situation, the optometrists are doing really well...

 

This idea of taking any information from a persons cell phone or other mobile device has already been to courts and has been shot down as illegal search and seizure.
Legal review says:
Nationwide, some of the most widely recognized exceptions to the warrant requirement are:

• Consent (the cell phone owner gave consent to the search)
• Plain view (the cell phone, or what was on it, was in plain view)
• The automobile exception (the cell phone was in an automobile, which has a reduced amount of privacy)
• Public school (the search occurred on public school property)
• Search incident to arrest (the search occurred after the cell phone owner was arrested)
• Stop & frisk (police can stop a person they have reasonable suspicion to believe committed, is committing, or will commit a criminal act, and can frisk the person if they believe the person is armed and dangerous)
• Hot pursuit/emergency (the chase for the suspect is occurring, and the police believe the suspect can easily destroy evidence related to the reason for the chase)

At first glance, the list of exceptions appears so general, it would appear that a police officer always has the right to search a cell phone, and be protected under the law. However, this is not true. In cases involving plain view, the cell phone may be in plain view, but what is on it, such as text messages, may be concealed. If a police officer had no reason to break into a password-protected area on your cell phone, yet they chose to do so, a judge may throw out whatever evidence they recover from such a search.