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Tesla won’t give drivers their own crash data without a court order

consumeraffairs.com

71–80 of 298 posts

Re: Tesla won’t give drivers their own crash data without a court order

#71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s for each consumer to decide of course. I bought my Model S fully knowing what I was getting into. I consider them holding themselves to a higher standard, but as in politics, you can’t find someone who agrees with you 100% in office. Have to compromise, and this isn’t a hill I care to die on. As I stated above, it’s a public policy issue, not Tesla specific. > if you take issue with this, sponsor a federal law…

I fail to see how Tesla's refusal to release data is a public policy issue and that legislation is required to fix that state of affairs. They could, you know, just release the data. Then the onus is on the rest of the industry. More to the point, Tesla's wish to be seen as a market disrupter is only going to hold as much water for me as their willingness to do it when it counts . This is one of those "when it counts…

If they don't release the data, and other automakers don't release the data, it's industry standard behavior. The onus is on you, the consumer, to ask for regulation to fix the behavior if you want it fixed; not complain specifically about Tesla's behavior.

Re: Tesla won’t give drivers their own crash data without a court order

#72
post #2

Can we make a law that all data collected by devices that I bought belongs to me? Yes, that includes everything the websites I visit send back to the mothership.

The question is, if it belongs to me, can I voluntarily give it up even under the known condition I can't ask for it back? I mean, it belongs to me right? That's where these laws often run afoul. You can have more freedom with consequences, or less freedom with restrictions.

Be clear what you mean by voluntary.

I agree that preventing a person to choose to sell something they own is a restriction on their freedom. But problems arise when the negotiation of that exchange is unilateral, relegated to EULAs and contracts which are incomprehensible, non-negotiable, and mandatory to purchase the product, and performed in a less-than-perfectly-efficient market.

It would be one thing if I could buy a Tesla, a Nest, or log onto a site with ads, and the process included a step where I could elect to share my data, to not share my data, or to give them the data and promise not to ask for it back, with different price points for each.

It's another thing when giving people the freedom to give up certain rights results in all manufacturers requiring people to exercise that freedom in order to purchase products.

The market is far from efficient. There is no car that's just like a Tesla but costs more by the value of this data exchange. There is no negotiation of the contract with Tesla, it's built into the purchase price and required by the legal department.

Observing that the market is pervasively inefficient in a way that leads to a bad outcome, and devising regulations that correct the inefficiency, is precisely why we have laws and governments.

Re: Tesla won’t give drivers their own crash data without a court order

#73
post #2

Can we make a law that all data collected by devices that I bought belongs to me? Yes, that includes everything the websites I visit send back to the mothership.

The question is, if it belongs to me, can I voluntarily give it up even under the known condition I can't ask for it back? I mean, it belongs to me right? That's where these laws often run afoul. You can have more freedom with consequences, or less freedom with restrictions.

I suppose GP's implication is that that known condition won't be permissible.

Re: Tesla won’t give drivers their own crash data without a court order

#74
post #48

Accelerator pedal immediately went from 0% to 100%? Really? Even I don't press my brake like that when parking.

> Even I don't press my brake like that when parking.

You might if you thought it was the brake and the car was accelerating.

Re: Tesla won’t give drivers their own crash data without a court order

#76
post #48

Accelerator pedal immediately went from 0% to 100%? Really? Even I don't press my brake like that when parking.

Sure seems like they are hiding something. It should be impossible to make a pressure sensor read 100% instantly. It would normally take 1/3 of a second and you would see the value increase gradually. Will autopilot even let you floor the accelerator with a car right in front of you?

> Will autopilot even let you floor the accelerator with a car right in front of you?

Yes. Autopilot does not override any user input. This is a major reason why L2 system failure will always be the responsibility of the driver.

Re: Tesla won’t give drivers their own crash data without a court order

#77
post #47

So this is something that has always kind of bugged me about Tesla. If you have an accident, they are more than happy to drop the crash data "proving" that you were at fault, look at the recent stories about running into a road barrier and the back of a firetruck for recent examples of this. And, of course, they don't ask you first if they can release it. However, if you want the data, you can't have it… you have to…

GDPR doesn't sound so bad now, does it? :)

Well, I'm (living as an) European, so I actually support GDPR anyway. But yes, I always wondered exactly what grounds they used to publish some of this data.

Re: Tesla won’t give drivers their own crash data without a court order

#78
post #7
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean GDPR?

No, I mean all data, not just PII. If a Nest measures the temperature in my house I want to own those data points.

Then, and I'm being serious: don't put a Nest in your house. You know what these things are, and you know what the company who makes them does.

Re: Tesla won’t give drivers their own crash data without a court order

#79
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK, you've accused me of submitting "click-bait karma" and "negative fluff articles". Care to elaborate on why you think the article under discussion is not legitimate?

It singles out Tesla and provides no broader context. Specifically there is no mention of the policies of other car companies. It is like saying that Kumo tires have been in 5 million car accidents. Sounds bad for Kumo, but there is no context to other types of tires. Will BMW or Lexus provide vehicle data after a crash? Will Google provide Android Auto data upon request?

OK, so it's incumbent on you to show where other companies have used data in the way that Tesla has done in response to accidents. Here's a Guardian article from last year that made a related allegation about Tesla and user data:

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/apr/03/the-custo...

> The Guardian could not find a single case in which Tesla had sought the permission of a customer who had been involved in an accident before sharing detailed information from the customer’s car with the press when its self-driving software was called into question. Tesla declined to provide any such examples and disputed the description of its automation software, called Autopilot, as “self-driving”.

I've Googled around but haven't been able to find instances of other companies releasing data in the wake of an incident, or being criticized by owners for not releasing data, though obviously the average car does not have the data systems that are standard on Tesla.

When Facebook gets criticized in an article for exposing/sharing user data, do you ignore the article if it doesn't have a complete rundown of how every other tech company may or may not abuse user data?

Re: Tesla won’t give drivers their own crash data without a court order

#80
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then pick any non-PII data point you like.

That doesn't really work because if it isn't PII, then they don't know who it belongs to (not having even your name is a field, or else it would be PII) and can't verify it belongs to you before giving it to you. Like visiting websites while not logged into anything in generating tons of data, but it can't be easily linked back to you. It would be possible to link some of it back to session IDs or other things you co…

You're bringing up a separate argument. One worth having, but not in this thread.

The argument here is that the company knows who the data belongs to, and the person above is saying that they shouldn't be able to abstract "you" away from the data and claim it as their own property.. especially because, as we know, most anonymization techniques have serious flaws that in fact do allow individuals to be identified after close scrutinization.

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