Pardon me for once again offering a link to an article involving, yes, Driverless Cars and their impact on society.

Only this time, we go to the legal field, to the effect Driverless Cars will have on our Fourth Amendment rights…

The Fourth Amendment (Amendment IV) to the United States Constitution is the part of the Bill of Rights that prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures and requires any warrant to be judicially sanctioned and supported by probable cause.

The article in question, written by John Frank Weaver and found on Slate.com, can be read here:

The Fourth Amendment and Driverless Cars

Driverless cars, by their very nature, are technological machines that require considerable computer equipment to perform their functions.  Because they are essentially moving computers, they will likely have considerable memory of their function and movement.

Currently, Mr. Weaver notes, there are cases involving search and seizure of smartphones, noting that because of the volume of information they hold, from emails to photographs to phone calls to contacts, etc. etc. etc., that police should have to request a proper warrant to look into any individual’s smartphone and cannot simply take it from a person and look at the information within it without doing so.

Driverless Cars, when they become what I suspect they will be in the very near future, present a very similar issue.  There is no doubt they will have records of where someone has been taken, where they left the car, when they returned to it, and, given the levels of technology in the vehicles, perhaps even conversations they had (if the car has its own cell phone device), etc.

An interesting read!