Columnist Jeff German: Cab ruling sounds like a bad idea

Friday, Oct. 29, 2004 | 11 a.m.

April 1 is the deadline for cameras to be installed in Las Vegas cabs.

But this could turn out to be just a big April Fool's Day joke if the state Taxicab Authority Board doesn't fix its just-adopted camera regulation.

"It's a mess," says Allen Lichtenstein, general counsel of the American Civil Liberties Union. "It's not well thought out. I would hope they look at it and say they didn't do it right and move to get rid of the problems."

The problems center on the board's decision to allow some companies to install video cameras with sound.

That, Lichtenstein says, has turned the noble effort to protect drivers into one that will allow companies, with no justification at all, to spy on the riding public. That includes the millions of tourists who are being told in a now-famous advertising campaign that "what happens here, stays here."

Nevada law prohibits the use of cameras with sound in taxicabs without the permission of the passengers. The attorney general's office, however, has rendered a legal opinion that allows the monitoring to take place as long as the passengers are notified in advance.

This week the Taxicab Authority Board included language in its regulation requiring decals be posted in cabs to inform passengers that they may be subject to both video and audio recording.

The language was added after one of the largest companies, Whittlesea Blue Cab, said it planned to equip its 350 cabs with sound cameras.

But the board left out crucial wording in the regulation to shield the public from the improper dissemination of the information gathered on passengers.

The regulation says only law enforcement authorities and company representatives are authorized to retrieve video images, yet it makes no mention of who can retrieve recorded conversations.

The regulation also makes it illegal to sell any image recorded by a camera system. But it does not make it illegal to distribute that information without selling it. And it does not say it is illegal to sell or distribute audio recordings.

"The fact that the regulation is lax in protecting information that is recorded leaves the potential for abuse very much a part of this," Lichtenstein says.

It's going to leave the Taxicab Authority Board with no choice but to adopt a more responsible measure. It's a process that will take weeks and require a public workshop to discuss and propose changes, then a review of the changes by the Legislative Counsel Bureau in Carson City and finally a hearing to adopt the new regulation.

Board spokeswoman Amanda Getzoff put a good spin on the board's failure to get it right this week.

"This is a starting point," she says. "The main thing is that everybody's working together to make something work. Nothing's going to be perfect from the get-go."

But as long as sound is part of the picture, this regulation may never be perfect in the eyes of the tourism industry, which is thriving on a marketing campaign promising to protect the privacy of visitors.

Informing tourists that their personal conversations are being monitored within minutes of stepping off a plane at the airport is hardly a friendly welcome.

Before the regulation was adopted, Bill Bible, president of the Nevada Resort Association, said he worried that recording taxicab passengers could have a chilling effect on tourism. After the hearing he told me he hasn't changed his opinion.

The way the regulation is written, cabbies won't be allowed to have any control over the camera system. So privacy-conscious passengers who don't want to be taped won't be able to rely on drivers to turn off the recorders.

They will have three options -- keep their mouths shut and stay in the cab, find a cab that doesn't have cameras with sound or look for another form of transportation which, in this town, is limited to taking a limousine, traveling by foot or riding the monorail, if it ever opens again.

"It puts them in a bind and in an uncomfortable position," Lichtenstein says. "I can't imagine it's going to make too many passengers happy."