For decades, vehicle controls - seemingly routine inspections under the guise of ensuring security - have been nothing more than a business model designed to serve the interests of those in power.
These controls, apparently implemented to safeguard drivers and pedestrians, have historically been tarnished by an obvious inconsistency: the same routes, signs and roads that are supposed to be maintained for public safety are constantly neglected and left in a bad state.
Meanwhile, the population is relentlessly obliged to comply with these inspections, regularly at significant personal and financial cost. This persistent disparity highlights a worrying truth: vehicle controls are not for safety but to enhance control.
The security façade is as always a smokescreen used to justify ongoing and expanding surveillance measures.
Over the years, governments and corporations have continually upped the stakes, introducing new layers of regulation that serve as mechanisms of digital oppression.
The push towards digitalization is not accidental or purely technological in nature; it is a movement calculated and designed to tighten control and oppression.
From the moment a vehicle is stopped for inspection, it is not just a routine check: it is a step towards a generalized monitoring system aimed at monitoring, tracking and ultimately limiting population movement.
Vehicle checks a business around the world
Almost all countries require mandatory vehicle inspections or checks to ensure compliance with safety and carbon emission standards. Here are notable examples grouped by region, with key details on inspection systems.
Most nations enforce periodic vehicle inspections, in accordance with safety and environmental standards.
Germany
- Required every 2 years for vehicles older than 3 years.
- Covers brakes, lights, tyres, emissions and structural integrity.
United Kingdom
- Required annually for vehicles older than 3 years (4 in Northern Ireland).
- Check safety, technical control and emissions.
- Digital verification through the national database; roadside cameras detect non-compliant vehicles.
Netherlands
- Inspection every 2 years for cars from 4 to 7 years; annually after the age of 8.
- Automated fines (180 €) issued if they have expired.
- Digital verification through the national database; roadside cameras detect non-compliant vehicles.
Belgium
- Annual inspection required after 4 years
- Green certificate for approval; "Red" for failure (2 weeks to repair).
- Mandatory pre-sales inspection.
Austria
- Annual inspection for all vehicles older than 3 years.
- Extremely thorough; includes underground transport and alignment controls.
- Required for vehicle registration.
Brazil
- Mandatory vehicle inspection in major cities such as São Paulo.
- It focuses on emissions and safety.
- Required annually for older vehicles
Mexico
- Preparation for mandatory verification throughout the country, currently in force in and around Mexico City.
- Biannual emissions and safety checks.
- Labels indicate compliance and allow circulation based on registration
Japan One of the most rigorous systems.
- Required every 2 years after the initial period of 3 years.
- It includes safety, emissions and even a fee for road use.
- Inspection of motor vehicles
South Korea
- Compulsory inspection every 2 years for vehicles older than 3 years.
- It covers safety levels, emissions and noise.
- Necessary for the renewal of the vehicle registration.
United States It is not a federal mandate; changes by state.
- About 15 states require periodic safety and/or emissions inspections.
- Examples: New York (annual), California (biennial smog check).
In each of the examples we can see a common factor that makes clear the underlying reason for such inspections: the measurement of emissions. This is a determining factor and is connected to the digital agenda and the limitation of movement.
From modernization to technological coercion: a global pattern
Around the world, governments are rapidly adopting digital priority policies under the slogan of "modernization," "efficiency" and "sustainability." But when these transitions lack offline alternatives, they evolve into what academics and human rights advocates call "digital coercion" and "surveillance capitalism"
The United Nations, through its 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the newly proposed Pact for the Future (2024), actively promotes global digitalization. Initiatives such as the Global Digital Pact advocate universal internet access, digital governance, and the integration of AI into public administration.
These objectives are shown to be well-intentioned. However, the goal of closing the digital divide as a global priority is actually for the underlying reason of being able to form a system of surveillance and oppression, where technology must be imposed on life under the miserable excuse that it is "modernity" and ensure "security"
All these modernization policies have the characteristic of forcibly imposing the obligation to use digital services, such as email, internet services (with how harmful wireless radiation results), the need for heavy and obstructive software (which work more like spyware) and of course the need for indispensable shackles, forgiveness… smartphones whose duration makes them more disposable than toilet paper
Digitization in Argentina exemplifies how the digital agenda is imposed with blunt force.
Of so many countries that are implementing the digital agenda, the particular case of Argentina is striking. Without even knowledge of its inhabitants, the implementation of multiple digital measures is common. Probably due to the traditional propaganda and manipulation of the media selling all this as progress, plunging the population into the utmost silence, highlighting an obvious ignorance of the digital threat.
The public areas are heavily guarded with security cameras, there is an overwhelming police presence, in the administration of basic procedures are imposing the use of digital accounts, smart meters (which have been criticized around the world) have been deployed in the utmost silence and have charged the cost of their facilities in the rates of services.
They have even put into operation a digital identity system ("mi argentina") where all the data of each citizen is found and for many procedures are returning to this necessary software, consequently the dependence on electronic devices such as smartphones.
Vehicle verification is another example, with the imposition of creating a digital account necessary to comply with these legal procedures. This produces a devastating and oppressive situation on civilians who are conditioned on their mobility, not to mention the legal consequences they would suffer from non-compliance.
The Argentine VTV system may not be a direct result of UN pressure, but it reflects a broader trend: global institutions that promote digitalization without adequate alternatives. The UN agenda assumes universal connectivity, digital literacy and confidence in technology, promises that deliberately do not hold true.
The rushed modernity
In the bustling streets of Buenos Aires, thousands of people travel their daily lives, traveling to work, running errands, ensuring that their vehicles comply with legal standards through the Technical Vehicle Inspection (VTV).
But for many residents, especially those without access to email or internet connectivity, a seemingly routine administrative task has become a source of frustration, exclusion and even indignity.
What was intended as a modernization effort - the digitalization of VTV citations and the mandatory use of the Electronic Address (Virtual Electronic Address, or DVE) by the Province of Buenos Aires - has become a systemic barrier that disproportionately affects the most vulnerable.
While digital transformation is shown as always with the stupid excuse of "efficiency, transparency and innovation" its implementation in critical public services such as VTV reveals a darker side: one where technology is not a tool for progress, but a mechanism of exclusion and absolute control.
When access to basic rights depends on digital platforms controlled by companies, we must ask ourselves: who is the real use of technology?
Digitization of mandatory procedures: Efficiency at what cost?
The switch to online dating systems for VTV inspections in the Province of Buenos Aires represents a classic case of how digitalization is currently enforced.
Under the new system, all citizens must register through the DVE, a digital address linked to e-mail and Internet access. This digital gateway is not just for VTV: it extends to driver license renewals, traffic ticket management and other essential bureaucratic processes.
On the surface, this sounds like progress. After all, digital services can reduce wait times, streamline operations, and minimize corruption. However, the reality is much more complex.
This system may not involve real-time surveillance or behavior monitoring, but it exemplifies an increasingly common dystopian reality: the exercise and enforcement of civic rights is being conditioned on a digital infrastructure over which citizens have no control.
This infrastructure (e-mail services, web portals, data collection systems) is largely dominated by multinational technology companies.
So when a government orders the use of email, it indirectly orders the reliance on platforms like Gmail, Yahoo or Outlook - services owned by Google, Verizon, Microsoft - none of which are publicly or democratically responsible.
This isn't just digitization. It is the externalization of civic participation to corporate digital ecosystems, as well as the imposition of the consumption of electronic products necessary to access them
It cannot be accepted that individuals are under the imposition of reliance on digital services in order to perform mandatory legal procedures, even if digital services are provided by the state.
To impose this is to establish a dependency on digital systems which by the nature of computer systems can never guarantee transparency and civilians will never have any control, security, or guarantees, leaving the entire population subjected to these digital measures in a state of extreme vulnerability.
When these "technological" measures are deliberately imposed without any alternative, they make them inevitable in order to carry out compulsory legal procedures whose failure to comply will cause severe consequences for the freedom of individuals.
It is clear that all this digital infrastructure has never had the good intentions that profess it, because it allows absolute levels of control and oppression over life.
Digital identity and reduced mobility
