It’s Official: Cars Are the Worst Category We Have Ever Reviewed for Privacy
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It’s Official: Cars Are the Worst Category We Have Ever Reviewed for Privacy
1–10 of 28 posts
Re: It’s Official: Cars Are the Worst Category We Have Ever Reviewed for Privacy
#2Worse than smartphones?
The article claims "more than even smart devices in our homes or the cell phones we take wherever we go", but doesn't elaborate on or substantiate the claim.
Re: It’s Official: Cars Are the Worst Category We Have Ever Reviewed for Privacy
#3This doesn’t surprise me at all. The whole car infotainment industry is so far behind the curve, and updating to respond to legislation just doesn’t seem to be a thing.
Re: It’s Official: Cars Are the Worst Category We Have Ever Reviewed for Privacy
#4Worse than smartphones? The article claims "more than even smart devices in our homes or the cell phones we take wherever we go", but doesn't elaborate on or substantiate the claim.
I think so, yeah. Smartphones have been in the crosshairs of privacy advocates for years. They gather and send information, but successful lobbying has limited what information gets sold. (note that governments hacking phones or requesting data from isp's is a second thing altogether)
Car manufacturers basically just don't give a peep, and just gather every single morsel of info they can get their hands on, and preferably sell that information to anyone interested.
Re: It’s Official: Cars Are the Worst Category We Have Ever Reviewed for Privacy
#5So, how would one go about checking whether a car can collect information about you or not? I'm not talking about the company policy, but of the actual parts inside the car.
Re: It’s Official: Cars Are the Worst Category We Have Ever Reviewed for Privacy
#6This doesn’t surprise me at all. The whole car infotainment industry is so far behind the curve, and updating to respond to legislation just doesn’t seem to be a thing.
No, car infotainment is pretty much on the curve. At least as far as data collection goes.
Re: It’s Official: Cars Are the Worst Category We Have Ever Reviewed for Privacy
#7This doesn’t surprise me at all. The whole car infotainment industry is so far behind the curve, and updating to respond to legislation just doesn’t seem to be a thing.
> All but two of the 25 car brands we reviewed earned our “ding” for data control, meaning only two car brands, Renault and Dacia (which are owned by the same parent company) say that all drivers have the right to have their personal data deleted. We would like to think this deviation is one car company taking a stand for drivers’ privacy. It’s probably no coincidence though that these cars are only available in Europe -- which is protected by the robust General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) privacy law.
I think legislations does cover these(at least to some extent), but the industry chose to play ignorant.
Re: It’s Official: Cars Are the Worst Category We Have Ever Reviewed for Privacy
#8Most of those car brands can disable the sim module at special request, it usually costs to do so and is a physical hw disable.
Speaking to a friend who works at a dealership this is usually most seen in cars spec'd for celebs and politicians.
Re: It’s Official: Cars Are the Worst Category We Have Ever Reviewed for Privacy
#9This doesn’t surprise me at all. The whole car infotainment industry is so far behind the curve, and updating to respond to legislation just doesn’t seem to be a thing.
> All but two of the 25 car brands we reviewed earned our “ding” for data control, meaning only two car brands, Renault and Dacia (which are owned by the same parent company) say that all drivers have the right to have their personal data deleted. We would like to think this deviation is one car company taking a stand for drivers’ privacy. It’s probably no coincidence though that these cars are only available in Euro…
No idea if Mozilla checked the US or EU. But even in the EU car makers seem to collect, and use, excesive amounts of data. There is some EU legislation in the works so right now. Which is good.
I do not have issues with collecting data for crash investigation and such. And that your on board gps is collecting GPS data is somewhat normal. What I do not see any justification for is:
- sharing said data with manufacturers, instead of just saving it locally
- collecting data from phones or even passangers
- allowing manufacturers to analyse, use and sell sid data
- allow Apple and Google access to OBD data (that's why I just use bluetooth to stream music, but eho knows...)
- why a car has to be connected to the cloud to begin with
- why the infotainment system has access at all to OBD data (exception: data used for navigation, and that should only be used when needed and then deleted by the GPS)
Well, if I leave my phone at home, my car from 1982 seems to be save so. Now if I could just afford to use it as a daily... Well, no, too uncomfortable. But still. Anyway, time to remove the SIM that came with our latest used car bought directly from an official brand dealership. Assuming it is the only one, which it most likely isn't since the car has an emergency button, the deffinetly needs some for of connection I cannot control.
Re: It’s Official: Cars Are the Worst Category We Have Ever Reviewed for Privacy
#10So, how would one go about checking whether a car can collect information about you or not? I'm not talking about the company policy, but of the actual parts inside the car.
Looks like the answer is yes. Unless it has no data connection.