By some estimates, "black box" data recoring devices are in as many as 30 million of the 200 million cars and trucks on America's roads. Is your ride one of them? Car makers aren't required to notify you, unless you buy the car in California. This PDF document contains a partial list of vehicles with built-in black boxes. Link (Ed. note: it's pretty US-centric — anyone have similar data for other countries?) The devices typically record for a few seconds after an airbag deployment, collecting speed, braking and other operating data. Some privacy advocates are concerned that the data could be used against you in court unfairly.
(Thanks, David Radulski
— data via St. Louis Post-Dispatch)
Update: Jim Harris of Harris Technical Services, the "Traffic Accident Reconstructionists" who produced the black box list, says:
The list on the Harris Technical Services website, listing the vehicles with "black boxes", is complete and current as far as being able to retrieve crash data from them with commercially available equipment. Other manufacturers, Toyota in particular, have stated they have a data recorder of some type on board but have not released the required software or hardware required to extract the data. They have not published exactly what data is recorded. Pretty much the same for Volvo. Daimler-Chrysler has not commented at all. (…) There is one legal case, still pending final resolution, where the judge would not admit [black box data] evidence as the police did not obtain a search warrant before downloading the data. This case is in Tennessee.
