‘Textalyzer’ law proposed to curb distracted driving
ALBANY, N.Y. — Ben Lieberman just wanted to find out what may have caused the head-on collision that killed his 19year-old son, Evan, on a highway north of New York City. It took a lawsuit and six months in court to get the cell phone 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 tragedy into a proposal that would allow police at crash scenes in New York to immediately examine drivers’ cell phones 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 tech company Cellebrite to develop the plug-in device that’s been nicknamed the “textalyzer.”
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 cell phone records. They’re also concerned such technology would be used to access personal information.
“Every fender bender would become a pretense for gobbling up people’s private cell phone information, and we know that cell phones typically contain our entire lives,” said New York Civil Liberties Union Executive Director Donna Lieberman, who is not related to Ben Lieberman.
Deborah Hersman, the CEO of the National Safety Council and a supporter of the “textalyzer” legislation, noted that in 2016, 40,000 people died on the road, a 14 percent 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 be able to tell if someone physically clicked or swiped the phone only during the time of the crash, and then investigators could use that to determine if they should get a warrant for more detailed information.
Sponsors expect the Republican-led state Senate to approve the bill, but anticipate opposition in the Democratic-led Assembly.