Big Brother alert: Federal agency wants black boxes in every new car by September 2014

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has proposed a new unified standard for event data recorders for cars, commonly known as “black boxes.”

Such devices, which are already in use in 96 percent of 2013 model year cars, record various types of data that can be accessed in multiple ways. The agency also estimates that 92 percent of 2010 model year cars have “some EDR capability.”