Chicago Police may have a new tool in determining accident liability according to the Chicago Tribune, as there is a push by Chicago city Alderman to get police to use a device called a Textalyzer to determine if a person was using their phone during an accident. Alderman Ed Burke and Anthony Beale of the 14th and 9th wards respectively, introduced a resolution Wednesday to the city council hoping to get the police department to appear and discuss the possibility of using the Textalyzer. Here’s a description of the device per the Tribune. “A Textalyzer — a device developed by Israeli company Cellebrite — can access a phone’s operating system to check whether it was being used to text, email or perform other functions. Its name is a play on the Breathalyzer, which can help determine whether a driver is legally drunk. Use of such devices is being considered in Tennessee and New York, where the idea of suspending driver’s licenses for refusing to have a phone scanned has been debated.”

There has been a rise in texting related accidents and deaths the last few years, and the proponents of the textalyzer see it is an epidemic. “Our nation is in the grips of a texting epidemic and drivers text with impunity because they think there is little chance of ever getting caught,” Burke said in a statement. “Such illegal activity not only poses a serious threat to other motorists, but also to the many cyclists who regularly use our network of bike lanes and to pedestrians at crosswalks.” This is an interesting issue and I had never heard of anything like a “textalyzer” before so I thought that sounded fascinating. On the merits of the resolution, it is certainly complex as well. Driving and texting is clearly unsafe and should be illegal but how accurate can these things be in determining the exact nature of an accident-text relationship? Maybe they can pinpoint the exact moment an accident happened and the exact moment the text was sent and i’m not up to speed on the technology. Or they can determine the text logs just proved in general that a person had used texting during the whole of their driving and it doesn’t matter if it’s determined the exact cause of the accident cause they committed a violation anyway.

This also brings up issues of privacy, as people might be understandably shy about the police getting access to there text messages. Sure the police can access peoples data when they’re investigating them if they get a warrant but that is ethically debatable as well. I’m all for keeping people safe but this seems like a bit of an extreme measure and invasive of peoples privacy. I would like to see data or evidence that this measure would actually decrease the amount of driving and texting accidents, rather than just increasing the amount of punishment that’s going to be handed out. I’m also wondering if any accident is subject to the police being able to look through your text messages? Because that doesn’t sound good to me. All in all this is just too much of an invasion of privacy in my opinion, without hard evidence it’s actually going to make people safer.