All 25 car brands reviewed raised privacy concerns regarding customer data.
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As a (former now?) car enthusiast, this shit is the quickest way to curb my enthusiasm about cars and make me a radical die-hard f*ck cars person. This is also why so many people hate EVs, they just hate this invasive tech and are misinformed. These companies need to be collectively fined HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS of dollars, AT LEAST.
I really really hope motorcycles haven’t been infested by this plague yet.
But Harley-Davidson needs to know your sexual preference! Won’t someone think of Harley-Davidson?!?
How about innovating over trying to become the 7917646151st data broker?
Good to know. So things to inquire when buying a car will be:
I guess in either case the answer will likely mean I will keep driving my existing car until it dies.
SIM card removal, antenna destruction, etc. Will only help us until they play the insurance card. Can’t afford shooting down the road in two tons of steel without insurance.
Can’t you just cut the antennas?
You mean like completely rip open the interior, find the wiring for the antennas and cut them? Yeah, not something I’m gonna do to a machine I just paid tens of thousands of Euros for.
It’s designed to be opened without damaging it. Just install a switch
In the cars I know, the electronics are one of the first things they attach to the bare bone car body. Sure I can get to it… by dismantling half of the car.
If it’s a Tesla, you lose all access to connectivity, OTA updates, “autopilot”, driver assist, gps, etc…
Fuck Elon
That’s fine, I have a degoogled phone for that
Is it possible to sideload updates to a Tesla?
Of course it’s possible if you have physical access. The question is: how easy? And: are you prepared for them to remotely disble your car while you’re working on it
They tested only 25 makes, and all have failed. I say ‘only’ to remind everyone that just because your car’s make isn’t on the list does not mean it’s good, it only means it wasn’t tested.
I’ll stick to my old 2007 shitbox. Until I can block sending all data from a new vehicle to someone else’s servers I just can’t justify buying a new vehicle.
I can’t control the software on my 2003, but the software can’t control me
This reminds me of that story of tesla employees sharing videos of kids being run over, naked customers, or customers fucking in private chat groups:
https://www.reuters.com/technology/tesla-workers-shared-sensitive-images-recorded-by-customer-cars-2023-04-06/
I look forward to the class action and GDPR lawsuits.
Who’d have thunk that a car that monitors its cabin even when it’s off is not actually considerate about privacy?
AuToMoTiVE fReEDoM
I was at a car engineering conference some years ago and everyone dismissed this problem as minor or not their problem, all they cared about was 5g/self driving, lighter/composite weldin materials/techniques and “cockpit amenities” where they harnessed all sorts of user data.
That’s good to hear.
That means they’re fucked when they inevitably get hit by GDPR claims in the EU.
I was worried they might have had legal prepare for inevitable lawsuits, by ensuring they did the bare minimum. Apparently not. Always fun.
At least in 2019 they looked at me like I had 3 heads when I mentioned privacy and secure removable ID “pods”. I’m not sure the EU is strong enough to take on all the automaker lobby like they did VW.
You are comparing a singular industry to 40% of the world’s industries (in financial produce) and say the singular industry would win with lobbying. How would that make sense.
I don’t understand your point. Are you saying every other industry is going to gather together to bring the car industry to account?
Those industries are under the might of the EU. They have no problem at all using that power and they regularly do.
I hope so 😇
And privacy/security surely doesn’t sound as flashy as all those new inventions that necessarily will demand a compromise. Once the wall has holes it will be hard to stop
My 20-year-old car has never once narced on me.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
According to a report published by the Mozilla Foundation on Wednesday, cars are “the official worst category of products for privacy” that it’s ever reviewed.
All 25 of the car brands that were researched for the report — including Ford, Toyota, Volkswagen, BMW, and Tesla — failed to meet the nonprofit organization’s minimum privacy standards and were found to collect more personal data from customers than necessary.
Mozilla says it also couldn’t confirm that any of the automakers could meet the organization’s minimum security standards regarding data encryption and protection against theft.
In fact, it claims dating apps and even sex toys typically provide more detailed security information about their products than cars.
“While we worried that our doorbells and watches that connect to the internet might be spying on us, car brands quietly entered the data business by turning their vehicles into powerful data-gobbling machines,” says Mozilla in the report.
The report was so scathing that the organization said the advice it typically provides to help customers protect their personal data feels like “tiny drops in a massive bucket.” Instead, the Mozilla Foundation has started a petition urging car companies to stop the data collection programs they’re unfairly benefitting from, expressing that “our hope is that increasing awareness will encourage others to hold car companies accountable for their terrible privacy practices.”
The original article contains 584 words, the summary contains 222 words. Saved 62%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!