by sandermvanvliet on 9/9/23, 9:39 AM with 309 comments
by defrost on 9/9/23, 10:30 AM
Internet-connected cars fail privacy and security tests conducted by Mozilla
3 days ago|632 comments
by quicklime on 9/9/23, 11:01 AM
Am I reading this correctly? I could be a passenger in my friend's Subaru, or even in an Uber, and they claim they have a right to my personal data? Surely this isn't legal, there's no way they could claim to have consent for this...
by franky47 on 9/9/23, 12:40 PM
Salesman: "Do you have a Google account?"
My dad: "Yes, why?"
Salesman: "It's mandatory for purchasing a car with us."
by kiwih on 9/9/23, 10:03 AM
> All 25 major car brands reviewed in Mozilla’s latest edition of Privacy Not Included (PNI) received failing marks for consumer privacy, a first in the buyer's guide’s seven-year history.
by travisgriggs on 9/9/23, 10:45 AM
Until this comes to be understood et large as a basic contributing doctrine of our basic value exchange system, this type of thing will continue to be more and more pervasive.
Given the multiple years we’ve been at it, I think a basic doctrine of privacy as a counterweight is too squishy to really settle in the public’s mind and countermand the negative effects of the surveillance at large.
A new counter doctrine will need to take place. I’m not sure what it would be.
by polotics on 9/9/23, 10:15 AM
by cebert on 9/9/23, 12:38 PM
Whoever makes these policies must get a chuckle knowing people will never do this.
by nwellinghoff on 9/9/23, 3:05 PM
by firefoxd on 9/9/23, 3:51 PM
For most people, even those who don't subscribe to the internet requiring service, there is no way to disable it. Especially when the radio device is inaccessible.
On a separate note, I recently got a CPAP machine. It comes with a copy of the terms and conditions that i had to sign and return to the doctor. Before you connect it, you must attach an external radio device.
Luckily, they botched the delivery and the device was 4 months late. Then when they finally sent it, it went to the wrong address. I called and said i never received it, before the neighbors brought my package. That's when i learned that the $1000 device i got was actually a subscription for $50 a month after the insurance contribution. I never plugged the radio device and the machine works just fine.
I paid $1000 for a fan with a tube, but at least I'm not paying for the subscription and never connected the spying component.
by jfoutz on 9/9/23, 2:40 PM
by tecleandor on 9/9/23, 10:13 AM
My dad just bought a Nissan Qashqai (I hate it, but wathever). For legal reference, I'm on Spain, so EU GDPR framework. Every single time you start the car it shows a consent screen for data aquisition. By memory... "Driving data, location, statistics, blablabla for the Nissan Connect program."
- I haven't connected nor I have a user or anything at all in the Nissan Connect apps
- You can't disable the dialog, not even in the service menu
- I've been digging in forums and everyone says you have to bear with that for the whole life of the car
by tomger on 9/9/23, 12:21 PM
by SOLAR_FIELDS on 9/9/23, 10:29 AM
There’s probably other sensor gathering happening around the vehicle and obviously you can’t hide things like driving habits but it feels like staying out of the manufacturer’s homegrown OS gets rid of a good chunk of the worst privacy nightmares
by mosselman on 9/9/23, 11:02 AM
Also, will these brand track geolocation information, etc?
Insane that any regulator would approve of this. A car shouldn’t be smart, it should be hardware that knows nothing about you. You can then enhance the car with something like Apple car play since you already use that phone everywhere anyway.
750 billion a year industry? What kind of dystopia do we live in?
Should we move to a system where a company can only do things or make things that are in their direct industry? So a car company can only make and sell cars and not sell data?
I have no idea what the solutions are, but this sounds horrible.
by heikkilevanto on 9/9/23, 2:31 PM
by lencastre on 9/9/23, 11:22 AM
by flagrant_taco on 9/9/23, 12:55 PM
by porkbeer on 9/9/23, 1:06 PM
by sholladay on 9/9/23, 4:06 PM
I wonder if Apple saw this coming when they started their automobile program, which seems less crazy to me the more time goes on. I always figured it had more to do with screen time and entertainment for when full autonomous driving becomes available. But the more I think about it, that will probably be less of a unique feature than privacy.
by uconnectlol on 9/9/23, 12:53 PM
its been proven before: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrysler#Chrysler_Uconnect
and will be proven again
just like with all tech don't buy anything made after 1990. corporations now see your vehicle as a smart phone that just gets a stream of alpha quality software piled onto it and updated whenever they are told of their mistakes
by nre on 9/9/23, 2:16 PM
by rapht on 9/9/23, 12:32 PM
by verve_rat on 9/9/23, 1:33 PM
by hellotheretoday on 9/9/23, 5:23 PM
I drove my friends Subaru with lane assist and adaptive cruise control and such. It’s nice, but I figured with the level of data collection that’s going on in these cars plus the fact that there seemed to be a cellular internet connection baked into the car there had to be some fucked up nonsense going on
My daily driver, a 2016 smart fortwo, is not as fancy or practical. But it is through and through a “dumb” car despite the name. It has no real modern creature comforts aside from automatic windshield wipers and headlights. Otherwise it’s like a car from 1998 with modern crash safety and I love it for that. Maybe it collects a ton of data but I’m very confident it doesn’t phone home. Plus a rear engined manual! Although a 3 cylinder one lol. At least you can park it basically anywhere
by moomoo11 on 9/9/23, 4:30 PM
You will have no choice to move freely once all cars are self driving.
You will be tracked even more than today with these cars.
Personally I think cars and freedom of movement are very important. And I do everything in my power to oppose self driving cars.
by indymike on 9/9/23, 2:48 PM
by erikig on 9/9/23, 12:50 PM
The fact that Nissan was the worst offender and Renault the least problematic is interesting and shows that GDPR has been helpful in getting European focused brands to take privacy seriously.
by bit_logic on 9/9/23, 3:46 PM
EDIT: Looked at a few privacy policies and the CCPA link is often hard to find. Keywords to look for: "CCPA", "California Privacy", some examples of links I found:
https://www.honda.com/privacy/your-privacy-choices
https://www.tesla.com/legal/privacy#data-sharing
https://www.ford.com/help/privacy/ccpa/
https://ksupport.kiausa.com/ConsumerAffairs/PrivacyManagemen...
Something interesting I found is also this: https://www.honda.com/privacy/CCPA-Metrics which shows how many requests Honda received. It seems not many are aware of CCPA rights and this number of requests is not enough to deter companies from gathering personal information. These metrics need to be orders of magnitude higher to make a difference in company behavior. It seems like an automated service to send these requests and more public awareness of CCPA could help here.
EDIT2: A lot of these forms ask whether you're submitting the request for yourself or you're an authorized agent doing it for someone else. I found more details on "authorized agents" on the CCPA FAQ: https://oag.ca.gov/privacy/ccpa. Maybe an organization like Mozilla or EFF could setup a service where you can authorize them to do this for you? Then you could just select a checkbox of companies that you want CCPA deletion requests for and it would be sent on a regular schedule (quarterly? yearly?). If such a service became popular, it could really disrupt the personal data gathering of companies.
by layoric on 9/9/23, 11:45 AM
by iamthepieman on 9/9/23, 4:08 PM
by jokowueu on 9/9/23, 11:16 AM
by merdaverse on 9/10/23, 7:43 AM
by jmakov on 9/9/23, 6:08 PM
by nilslindemann on 9/9/23, 2:45 PM
by zyngaro on 9/9/23, 4:52 PM
by vinay_ys on 9/9/23, 4:54 PM
by rvba on 9/9/23, 4:08 PM
by Mistletoe on 9/9/23, 1:52 PM
by mark_l_watson on 9/9/23, 2:29 PM
by curzondax on 9/9/23, 12:00 PM
by robbywashere_ on 9/9/23, 5:33 PM
by ChrisArchitect on 9/9/23, 11:17 AM
by okasaki on 9/9/23, 10:21 AM
> The Mozilla Foundation works to ensure the internet remains a public resource that is open and accessible to us all.
??
by natch on 9/9/23, 4:46 PM
For those of you who think for yourselves and are still reading, I'll explain why.
They have the best practices of any connected car listed, it's all opt in, and they collect nothing tied to your ID. Privacy aside, also there's no haggling, and it's a better car with lower TCO and more efficient drive train and wicked fun. The leather and mahogany and built in cigar cutter is not there, but hey you have a charging network.
Back to privacy, to me it's a feature, not a bug, that you can view live video from your car's many cameras while you are far away from your car. I can check from the office whether my garage door is open. That's good, not bad. Mozilla is really amping up the hyperventilation to think of this as a negative.
If you read carefully it sounds like nobody contributing to the article actually sat in a Tesla and went through the experience of how choices are presented.
The way I look at it most of the negatives they tried very hard to come up with in the article for Tesla boil down to "it seems we aren't sure if we can trust them because look at us, doing business with Google, which is also a privacy nightmare, and if we posture like this, Tesla might too" which is all fair, but very weak.
You actually don't see Tesla posturing about privacy, although maybe they might after this article. That would be reasonable. When you do read the fine print, it is very good for consumer privacy.
Just buy a great car that you love, but also one that you won't regret buying later.