Modern cars automatically invade your privacy
Buy dumb! According to a December 17, 2019 news story, modern cars automatically collect a vast amount of incredibly private information about their owners, especially if the owner uses the installed blue tooth phone and GPS.
[The reporter] discovered that the car was recording details about where the car was driven and parked, call logs, identification information for his phone and contact information from his phone, “right down to people’s address, emails and even photos.” In another example, Fowler bought a Chevy infotainment computer on eBay and was able to extract private information from it about whoever owned it before him, including pictures of the person the previous owner called “Sweetie.”
While GM was the subject of Fowler’s experiments, it’s not the only company collecting data on its drivers. In 2017, the U.S. Government Accountability Office looked at automakers and their data privacy policies and found that the 13 car companies it looked at are not exactly using best practices. For example, while the automakers say they obtain “explicit consumer consent before collecting data,” the GAO says they “offered few options besides opting out of all connected vehicle services to consumers who did not want to share their data.”
There is no justified ethical reason for any car company to collect and keep this information, especially without asking the owner permission to gather it. It simply does not belong to them, under any reasonable definition.
As I said, buy dumb. Better to get a used car without these invasive tools, or disable them if the car has them.
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Buy dumb! According to a December 17, 2019 news story, modern cars automatically collect a vast amount of incredibly private information about their owners, especially if the owner uses the installed blue tooth phone and GPS.
[The reporter] discovered that the car was recording details about where the car was driven and parked, call logs, identification information for his phone and contact information from his phone, “right down to people’s address, emails and even photos.” In another example, Fowler bought a Chevy infotainment computer on eBay and was able to extract private information from it about whoever owned it before him, including pictures of the person the previous owner called “Sweetie.”
While GM was the subject of Fowler’s experiments, it’s not the only company collecting data on its drivers. In 2017, the U.S. Government Accountability Office looked at automakers and their data privacy policies and found that the 13 car companies it looked at are not exactly using best practices. For example, while the automakers say they obtain “explicit consumer consent before collecting data,” the GAO says they “offered few options besides opting out of all connected vehicle services to consumers who did not want to share their data.”
There is no justified ethical reason for any car company to collect and keep this information, especially without asking the owner permission to gather it. It simply does not belong to them, under any reasonable definition.
As I said, buy dumb. Better to get a used car without these invasive tools, or disable them if the car has them.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
Same for anything that’s “smart” and “networked.” Smartphone, smart TVs, Alexa (and similar), smart home (app-based door locks and home controls for, say, heating or room monitoring with a cam) and generally Internet of Things, smart children’s toys too.
Always assume that the devices are always on and listening, that everything they record is uploaded to servers outside your control, that those data are shared (intentionally and accidentally) with third parties you have even less control over and processed and connected with other data about you in ways you won’t expect or wouldn’t believe is possible. The more smart and networked, the higher the risk of them being hacked and actively used against you. And once a service provider stops doing business or retires that specific product, the devices are not updated (security risk) or become a dead brick you most likely cannot repair.
Unfortunately there are no viable markets for privacy-oriented consumer products in most cases (several initiatives and companies have tried but failed). People want convenience, are generally ignorant, and price beats carefulness.
More than likely the car companies have no control over the “aps” or programs the customer uses.
Yes they offer them as options on the car but in no way do they actually own them or control them.
In the very very fine print they do, and have to, tell you what those aps are recording but they don’t have to let you use those aps if you don’t want to give out the info.
The car companies do this because its cheaper them either programing something exactly like the ap you want or buying the ap outright. So they make an agreement with the ap company and offer them for basically free.
Nothing is free. If your not paying cash for the service think of how they would be making their money.
Even if you pay, many continue to practice this intrusive behavior. Because they can and they get away with it. Being a paying customer doesn’t protect one.
It’s hard to drive this message home. Distrust all those smart and networked devices/services until proven otherwise.
My cars are dumb. They are fun to drive. What else is required?
FoMoCo is particularly egregious with this behavior:
https://www.cnbc.com/2014/01/09/ford-we-can-use-gps-to-track-your-car-movements.html
Global positioning system (GPS) users, be warned—Ford has its eyes on you.
A top executive at the car maker told a panel discussion at the CES trade show in Las Vegas that the tracking system installed in cars allows Ford to know when drivers are speeding—and where they are when they do it, according to a report in Business Insider.
Note, this is from 2014, BEFORE the in car “infotainment” system gave you explicit warnings that they were using and storing the GPS data.
This is why I don’t own anything with a blue oval on the nose. They’ve been tracking their purchasers for years, and to my knowledge, there’s nothing in the purchase agreements warning you of this.
There is a vast difference between your contact list being downloaded to your car’s memory and then uploading that information to the automaker. The article you mention focuses on data that exists as part of the car’s systems that you should be protective of if you sell your car. Your quote does not talk about uploading the information to the automakers servers.
The putting of information into the car’s memory makes sense so that it can use the phone book to have faster voice response for hands free calls and other items. If you want your contacts to pop up on your car screen just like they pop up on your cell phone, well then the data will be stored on your car – this is not earth shattering news.
Now, if the cars then upload that information somewhere off of the car – then there is a jump over what would be reasonably expected.
Its a fake headline to say “GM tracks every move” when it should read “Car hard drives record driving data”
The automakers are just a bunch of Pikers compared to what the insurance industry is doing with this data, transmitted to their servers thru the dongle such as the “Progressive Box”. Flo, the Gecko, et al are all out there to make you feel at ease about having your insurer monitor your every stroke of the accelerator pedal and every mile you travel to decide what your premium will be and if they will even carry you as a customer!