BMF: 英國官方有意將所有車種植入追蹤晶片

Steven 的發信，他目前擔任英國 BMF 的研究員。原新聞來自太陽報。為什麼轉錄這一則會內的消息呢？這根本次的遊行其實有間接的關係。重車在台灣的路權問題，並不是一個 motorcycle 單獨的問題，而是整個 social problem。信件內提到：

遊行訴求取簡明速捷之道，這是權宜，但是刻意撇開與速客達和一般兩輪用車之策略，應該很難獲得社會群體的同情和支持。然則，重車(摩托車)問題若能慢慢釐清，未來受益的是所有用路人。本次的遊行是一個開端，沒能聚集能量讓媒體了解這個關鍵點，是可惜之處。皮可以是如此，但是骨最好是整體的兩輪世界。否則下一次就要納入《Bikers: Culture, Politics and Power》去寫了。以下是 Steven 原文的轉載。

‘Hard’ Big Brother issues first arose in the UK during my time with the 2nd Directive on Driving licences in 1988: The Directive included a requirement that Member States stipulate that the driving licence include a photo. In the insidious way of the European Community, in order to undermine principled opposition to the licence as a ‘backdoor identity card’, the Directive gave Britain a ten-year derogation during which it could keep the old British driving licence without photo. But new driving licences now include a photo: I believe that the British Government even brought in the requirement early (My memory is that the ‘reason’ was to stop impersonation of candidates for the driving test), before the ten-year period of the derogation was up.

The BMF could only get MEPs to move so many amendments to the 2nd Directive on Driving licences (It was viewed as a ‘British’ novelty even for us to ask them to move more than one amendment!). Also photos on driving licences was essentially a ‘national’, not ‘motorcycle’, issue. Liberty of the subject issues hadn’t become the present flood, nor did they impinge so directly upon motorcycling. So the BMF confined its amendments to the purely motorcycle provisions of the Directive.

Many thanks for circulating the URL of the ‘Electronic Vehicle Identification’ article! I’ve passed it on to BMF colleagues. My quarterly BMF reports now summarise campaigns under heads that include specifically: H. Restriction, Surveillance, Police powers, Safety bans etc. In yet another proposal, in the name of ‘mitigating congestion’ or enhancing ‘road safety’, to ratchet up the legal powers or technical scope of the British Government to mount surveillance of the private activities of the citizen comes as no surprise.