Car Owners Should Control Data Collected by Cars • Hacker News Board

Re: Car Owners Should Control Data Collected by Cars

#171

Post by JohnFen » Tue, May 21, 2019, 7:44 PM UTC

abdullahkhalids wrote: post #166

Phlarp wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Expectation of privacy. Roads are mostly public, Google Glass can go all kinds of places

You will absolutely get into some kind of trouble (social or legal) if you put a camera on a sidewalk and start filming whoever goes by. On the other hand CCTV cameras don't receive any flak. Society is usually not obviously consistent about privacy matters. The ultimate determining factor is what seems creepy vs what is necessary. So its entirely possible that some societies might decide that the video taping done b…

> You will absolutely get into some kind of trouble (social or legal) if you put a camera on a sidewalk and start filming whoever goes by.

In the US, you won't get in any legal trouble for doing this. You do have certain restrictions on what you can do with the images you capture, though.

Re: Car Owners Should Control Data Collected by Cars

#172

Post by salawat » Tue, May 21, 2019, 7:46 PM UTC

bwb wrote: post #139

mixmastamyk wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Feel free to run to the front of the battle and take the arrows for the rest of us. Chiding others for not sacrificing themselves to boost corporate profits is a shitty thing to do. I also don't believe you've thought through all the failure modes and misaligned incentives that happen over time. Not wanting to live in a "1984" dystopia is not extreme by any means.

I am not chiding in any way, I apologize as my point must have not been well written if that is how it landed. Sorry :( We are not in 1984, and that is fiction. I fully acknowledge I have not fully thought through every branch of the problem, but what I don't want to see is this idea that all data is at the hands of the person who played a role in creating it. Some data needs to go back to the company and society if…

No. It doesn't. I don't understand where your presumption of 'need' comes from.

There is no physical dicta that mandates that just because something should happen, means that it must.

Pervasive data collection is not a need. It's a want, by every business out there because of the B2B revenue generating possibility.

Re: Car Owners Should Control Data Collected by Cars

#173

Post by JohnFen » Tue, May 21, 2019, 7:47 PM UTC

Pfhreak wrote: post #6

Why limit this to just cars? Is there something unique about cars? Why not phone users? Or internet users?

I don't limit this to cars, personally. I think the principle applies across the board. That's why I go to great lengths to prevent all software from phoning home without my express permission.

Re: Car Owners Should Control Data Collected by Cars

#174

Post by JohnFen » Tue, May 21, 2019, 7:48 PM UTC

ghaff wrote: post #25

cheerlessbog wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not as creepy as giving a big corporation access to microphones around your house. It astounds me that much of America has done exactly that.

I assume you don't use a smartphone, for the sake of consistency. It's really hard for me to draw a distinction between home voice assistants that you can activate via a voice command and smartphones that you can activate via a voice command.

I can't activate my smartphone with a voice command. And even if I could, I firewall everything off by default anyway.

Re: Car Owners Should Control Data Collected by Cars

#175

Post by oldjokes » Tue, May 21, 2019, 7:50 PM UTC

One of the reasons I didn't buy a Tesla was because I didn't want Elon tweeting about my actions if something happened and I died on the road. The salesman laughed at me when I said this.

While I acknowledge this is extremely unlikely, I'm still not interested. I want to be in control of all my data, all the time, in all situations. I don't want any third party to benefit from studying my behavior, ever. If you try to build a business model around mining people they are going to start fighting back sooner or later.

Re: Car Owners Should Control Data Collected by Cars

#176

Post by JohnFen » Tue, May 21, 2019, 7:51 PM UTC

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #100

I think that the ideas of Personally identifying information and Personally generated information need to be clearer. Information that exists because I pass through the digital world is still about me . Then we can envisage some changes in the law - the presumption in law should be that data about or generated by me should be owned by me - in the same way copyright is presumed to belong to me. If we then add in a pub…

> Personally identifying information and Personally generated information need to be clearer

The problem is that with Big Data, there isn't much difference between those two things. Almost all unique data can be combined with other data points to become personally identifying.

Re: Car Owners Should Control Data Collected by Cars

#177

Post by criddell » Tue, May 21, 2019, 7:52 PM UTC

the_snooze wrote: post #43

Something that bothers me is why are companies so casual about attaching fragile networked software to long-lived durable goods like cars? The manufacturer has no economic or legal incentive to keep that patched over the life of the hardware. This is the rotten shortsighted mindset of modern-day tech: all the benefit for the company, none of the responsibility.

Probably because that's what consumers buy.

My car has Android Auto and I know eventually it's going to stop working with new phones and that sucks. On the other hand, having Waze or Google Maps and access to my podcast player and all the other neat things it can do is pretty compelling. My wife's car has a built-in GPS and maps function that is always out of date and we have to pay for updates.

Re: Car Owners Should Control Data Collected by Cars

#178

Post by JohnFen » Tue, May 21, 2019, 7:53 PM UTC

judge2020 wrote: post #55

wool_gather wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very good point. Although, in the case of an accident, isn't your location already a matter of public record?

Not really/depends. Florida has the Public Records Act (which is why we have "Florida man" and "Florida woman" headlines) so there the police's crash report is public, but if your car hits another car on a backroad in any other state, more often than not only the two drivers, their insurance, and the police know about the event.

The last accident I got in (a fender-bender) was about 10 years ago -- and only myself and the other driver knew about it. No insurance companies or police were ever told.

Re: Car Owners Should Control Data Collected by Cars

#179

Post by JohnFen » Tue, May 21, 2019, 7:58 PM UTC

bwb wrote: post #162

JohnFen wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the notion that data you have a role in creating is yours seems extreme. The notion that it's OK for me to be forced to send such data to others seems extreme to me.

Like I said, you are not being forced, it isn't your data to start with is a different POV to approach this from. You are stuck in the mindset that because you are somehow related to the data you get ownership.

> Like I said, you are not being forced

I don't know why you say this, though, when you are arguing that I should be.

> because you are somehow related to the data you get ownership.

In the absence of a compelling reason otherwise, I demand such ownership.

Re: Car Owners Should Control Data Collected by Cars

#180

Post by 54thr » Tue, May 21, 2019, 8:04 PM UTC

pixl97 wrote: post #101

schintan wrote: post #93

unrelated to this particular article, but it seems nytimes coverage is tending more and more towards tech Luddite category these days. It is one thing to inform the readers but they seem to be bent on spreading fear about all things tech.

This is exactly what you should expect when tech companies get to run roughshod over any regulations or consumer protections. This isn't fear mongering against technology. This is bringing up absolute points about corporations completely out of control. I mean, for all that is good, the phone companies are still fighting the government on why it is good they can sell our cellphone/location data to whoever they want.

Are you suggesting that government is fighting to protect people's privacy in a world where cameras and sensors are being erected on every streetlight, commercial building, and roadside pole? Is government not one of the primary consumers of personal data?