Vehicle owners to pay P350 for LTO chips to spy on motorists

Car owners will be forced to shell out P350 for each vehicle when they renew their vehicle registration to allow the government to monitor their movement under a proposal of the Land Transportation Office (LTO).

Gabriela Women’s party-list Rep. Liza Maza yesterday questioned the LTO plan to tag vehicles with microchips using radio frequency identification (RFID) technology which it claims would enhance and speed up the vehicle registration process while providing authorities and the public speedy identification of vehicles.

"This technology raises fears that it might be used to violate the right to privacy of individuals. LTO’s microchips might in turn be used as spychips for government’s surveillance operations to those critical of the current administration," Maza said.

According to the LTO, it will begin tagging next month all vehicles with RFID labels that will enable it to identify and know everything about a specific vehicle with the speed of electronic computing.

The sticker contains a microchip storing vehicle information that is reportedly tamper-proof and can only be "read" by authorized scanners of the LTO and the police.

"Apparently, LTO will act like a Big Brother. It can be used as a spying device since radio waves from a microchip will identify all information of the vehicle on real-time basis," Maza said.

Maza stressed that LTO must explain their plan to the public and it needed to be transparent on the technology to be used for it and the kind and level of information it will provide.

As to the cost of this technology, Maza also scored the LTO for again passing the burden to the people as motorists will have to pay a one-time tagging fee of P350 when they register their vehicles.

Critics of the LTO plan also branded it as a midnight contract with an LTO-favored technology firm that had the potential to be the source of fat commissions.

Under the LTO plan, stickers containing a microchip storing vehicle information that is supposedly tamper-proof beginning next month.

LTO Assistant Secretary Arturo Lomibao said the tags will bring a significant improvement in the efficiency of traffic law enforcement particularly through the quick identification of "colorum" vehicles.

Lomibao added the tags are expected to be a major deterrent to car theft since vehicles with the tags are identified as they pass scanners in police checkpoints.