New York eyes 'textalyzer' to combat distracted driving

ALBANY, N.Y. -- Ben Lieberman just wanted to find out what may have caused the head-on collision that killed his 19-year-old son, Evan, on a highway north of New York City.

It took a lawsuit and six months in court to get the cellphone records showing the driver of the car his son was in had been texting behind the wheel.

Lieberman doesn't believe getting that information should be so hard.

He's channeling his grief over the 2011 accident into a proposal that would allow police at accident scenes in New York to immediately examine drivers' cellphones with a device to determine whether they'd been tapping, swiping or clicking. It's been called a Breathalyzer for texting.

"You think people are already looking at phones, and it just doesn't happen," said Lieberman, who is partnering with the Israel-based tech company Cellebrite to develop the plug-in device that's been nicknamed the "textalyzer."

The idea already faces obstacles from constitutional and privacy advocates who are quick to note police need the owner's consent and a warrant to get cellphone records.

They're also concerned such technology would be used to access all the personal information people may have on their cellphones.

"Every fender bender would become a pretense for gobbling up people's private cellphone information, and we know that cellphones typically contain our entire lives," said New York Civil Liberties Union Executive Director Donna Lieberman, who is no relation to Ben Lieberman.

At least 46 states have laws barring texting while driving and 14 ban all hand-held devices, but some safety advocates say more needs to be done to enforce the laws.

Cellebrite said its technology, which is about nine months away from being finished, sidesteps privacy concerns because it's designed only to determine usage, not access data.

Company officials said the device would be able to tell only whether someone physically clicked or swiped the phone during the time of the accident, and then investigators could use that to determine whether they should get a warrant for more detailed information.

"For this device, the whole purpose is not to get any data," said Jim Grady, the CEO of Cellebrite USA. "So no, police won't be able to, unless they rewrite our code."