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

consumeraffairs.com

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

#281
post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it is a US company that does business in Europe, but is not established in the Union, you are correct. If the company is established in the Union, then GDPR applies to all personal data processing it does. See Article 3(1): "This Regulation applies to the processing of personal data in the context of the activities of an establishment of a controller or a processor in the Union, regardless of whether the processin…

What does "established in the union" even mean?

I read it as based/headquartered in the European Union.

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

#282
post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, it’s not likely to be enforced. Note that you cannot sue anyone over the GDPR, however. That is a fundamental misunderstanding that I keep seeing repeated - the GDPR only gives people the right to report companies to the relevant authority. The authority can then investigate and issue a warning/fine as they see fit.

> Note that you cannot sue anyone over the GDPR, however. That is a fundamental misunderstanding that I keep seeing repeated - the GDPR only gives people the right to report companies to the relevant authority It also gives the right to to sue. See Articles 79, 80, and 82. There's a nice summary here: https://privacylawblog.fieldfisher.com/2016/getting-to-know-...

That's interesting. Traditionally European law eschewed private rights of action in favor of public regulators, while the U.S. heavily favored private enforcement. But now Europe is increasingly providing for private action. Whereas the U.S. is increasingly disfavoring private action (e.g. limitations on class actions), and attempts to extend public enforcement are failing (e.g. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau).

Here's an interesting law review article examining these developments: The Arc and Architecture of Private Enforcement Regimes in the United States and Europe: A View Across the Atlantic, https://law.unh.edu/sites/default/files/media/rathod_-_final...

Personally in terms of public policy I prefer private action, but maybe that's because I'm American. Private actions are usually predicated on actual, individualized harm, whereas regulators can strong-arm companies without any evidence of actual harm. Theoretically it makes for a better business environment, especially for startups, legal anxiety about nuisance lawsuits notwithstanding[1]. But private action doesn't scale; if you don't permit aggregation of claims (i.e. class actions) then private enforcement can't redress systemic behaviors.[2]

[1] The anxiety is invariably overblown. I think it's because most people's eyes will glaze over when hearing stories about regulator enforcement actions. But stories about slip & fall lawsuits are both legion and relatable; like with terrorism, people develop a false sense of the legal risks and costs.

[2] I mean, it could work without aggregation if you changed the rules of litigation to really streamline individual claims, such as by shifting the burden of proof onto the defendant for certain categories of behavior. Then it would sort of act like a dynamic tax that responded to business practices. Keep your customers happy and you pay a minimum, baseline tax--the cost-of-doing-business that is whatever amount you want to pay out for fraudulent claims, not unlike what businesses already do with accounts payable and shrinkage. Do something that might upset your customers and you'll have to face an onslaught of cases that either require a quick payout or costly litigation. I imagine such a regime would look much like that with class actions, with specialized law firms that identify and aggregate plaintiffs to benefit from economies of scale, and take a cut of the proceeds. But it would still make it much easier for people to prosecute small claims themselves.

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

#283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about create a purchasers’ union and use your collective purchasing power to influence the behavior of companies, the way that companies use their power to control consumers. I don’t have any problem with your union; in fact, I might join such a union. Just don’t force everyone to join it, which is what happens when laws are made for everyone as a result of the bad decisions of some. I don’t know if such a union…

First of all, I don't think it would be practically feasible to do this in the real world. As the old saying goes, if person A finds a way to get 100 million dollars by making 100 million people lose $1 each, he would have every incentive and tool to get that money and no one would have any incentive to stop him. Imagine the enormous costs of forming a purchasers' union, both direct and transaction costs. You can nev…

The big problem with government and laws is that the more government and laws there are the more an advantage big companies have, since big companies are the only single entities that can stand up against large and complex structures such as government and legal systems.

Pertaining a purchasers’ union, I don’t mean something that would bureaucratically bogged down purchasing. I mean something like a club where you only purchase from those companies approved by the club, and everybody in the club gets to vote on which companies will be allowed to be purchased from.

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

#284
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.

There's no real justification for anyone having that right. The device manufacturer/website owner/etc does the work of creating the data, yet you think it's yours?

If I buy a machine that manufactures widgets I own the widgets. Why should it be different for machines that produce bits?

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

#285
post #78
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don't have a Nest, but it becomes increasingly difficult to buy things that don't produce data. I think we should adapt our laws before everything you can buy is "smart".

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

#286
post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, as I understand it, that is correct. When you are in a country that is a member of the EU, your data held by companies is subject to the GDPR.

Doesn't this mean that even a US company which explicitly verifies it only works with US citizens must still IP block all of Europe to comply? EDIT: A nasty surprise that might be, too, if it turns out there was important data via that service that you wanted to access abroad but couldn't.

Only if they actually have a legal presence in the EU. If they are a US company that has no legal entity established in the EU, the laws of the EU have no effect on them.

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

#287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not going to get sucked into this. If you have to ask, it implies you already believe that all of the dozens of articles published daily have total merit, in which case nothing I'm going to say will convince you because your position is pretty well set in concrete.

If I'm not already convinced Tesla is being unfairly attacked, I'm not amenable to changing my position? I find that line hard to understand.

True, perhaps you are amenable to it. But 95% of people encountered online already have their minds made up one way or the other pretty firmly, and I don't care to take the chance you're a unicorn.

Which begs the question, why do I comment in these discussions at all? I do not know.

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

#288
post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, as I understand it, that is correct. When you are in a country that is a member of the EU, your data held by companies is subject to the GDPR.

Doesn't this mean that even a US company which explicitly verifies it only works with US citizens must still IP block all of Europe to comply? EDIT: A nasty surprise that might be, too, if it turns out there was important data via that service that you wanted to access abroad but couldn't.

> must still IP block all of Europe to comply

It could comply the normal way.

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

#289
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.

So, if you have a DSLR camera on a tripod set to a timer, and you do not actually take the picture, you have no claim to copyright of that image, even though the device you owned created it?

Timed photo definitely has copyright. Continuous surveillance footage is an open question.

But the post you're replying to wasn't about copyright at all.

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

#290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't this mean that even a US company which explicitly verifies it only works with US citizens must still IP block all of Europe to comply? EDIT: A nasty surprise that might be, too, if it turns out there was important data via that service that you wanted to access abroad but couldn't.

Only if they actually have a legal presence in the EU. If they are a US company that has no legal entity established in the EU, the laws of the EU have no effect on them.

Thanks for the info.
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