Modern cars are quietly spying on drivers. This investigation exposes automotive data harvesting, insurance scoring, cybersecurity risks, and a new law fighting back.
Hardly just the vehicle systems. Beware the insurance companies (really, any service provider) offering cheaper rates than you're currently paying--BUT only if you install their brand's app on your smart phone--which gives them much of the same data, even for those driving older cars, by moving/enhancing the data harvesting surveillance from the car itself to your (usually present at all times) smart phone. That opens up a whole 'nother batch of behaviors they can surveil. To tailor the price they charge YOU. Your neighbor could be paying half, the same or twice as much--depending on what they can harvest on him.
The promise of cheaper prices/convenience is surest lure to get you to step into their trap--and to give your "consent" simply by activating it. This is also why we can no longer "buy" software, but have to "subscribe" to it...along with the often daily updates to "fix bugs in the system" (translated: when the collected data gets transmitted back to the app developer!)
Yet again--because something is "legal" does not make it moral or right. And the one great awakening we should all be having is that there is no shortage of well-paid or blackmailed stooges (also called "politicians" or "career bureaucrats" from BOTH parties) who serve to make this disgusting corporate pillaging "legal" and then further enhance their overlord's protection rackets through government bureaucracy a/k/a "oversight."
This law is the "LOOK! SQUIRREL!" public relations approach to spotlight ("clean up") the malpractice of VEHICLE data capture; while it simultaneously accomplishes nothing to clamp down on rampant data collections abuses of the truest, most ubiquitous personal digital prison guard we have--the one that's carried in your pocket or purse. (Or the operating platforms running those devices, but I digress...)
... A 'de/googled' mobile phone, a stand/alone 'GPS Navigator' (WITHOUT "updates...") in place of your Convenient phone App.... and car servicing outside of the dealer network.
Or, same $$s spent on restoring an older luxury car for the 'Daily Driver' and limit a Company Car for 'work' ONLY.
1965 FJ40. No computer, no airbags, no GPS, Alternator, ignition key, battery, starter coil and distributor wiring harness. Put some LED lights and USB ports on it other than that as simple as a tractor.
It will run an other 60 years on LPG or methane that I squeezed from the gas bag political types when fuel gets scarce.
It's climbs the hill faster than the 2025 TLC diesels.
Mine isn't. Think 1983 Italian spec Ferrari Quattrovalvole
For such Italian thoroughbreds, your car computers will be overloaded with Fault & Breakdown Data.... G/bytes of it !!! 🤣😇
Zero digital nonsense in my 1983 Quattrovalvole
Hardly just the vehicle systems. Beware the insurance companies (really, any service provider) offering cheaper rates than you're currently paying--BUT only if you install their brand's app on your smart phone--which gives them much of the same data, even for those driving older cars, by moving/enhancing the data harvesting surveillance from the car itself to your (usually present at all times) smart phone. That opens up a whole 'nother batch of behaviors they can surveil. To tailor the price they charge YOU. Your neighbor could be paying half, the same or twice as much--depending on what they can harvest on him.
The promise of cheaper prices/convenience is surest lure to get you to step into their trap--and to give your "consent" simply by activating it. This is also why we can no longer "buy" software, but have to "subscribe" to it...along with the often daily updates to "fix bugs in the system" (translated: when the collected data gets transmitted back to the app developer!)
Yet again--because something is "legal" does not make it moral or right. And the one great awakening we should all be having is that there is no shortage of well-paid or blackmailed stooges (also called "politicians" or "career bureaucrats" from BOTH parties) who serve to make this disgusting corporate pillaging "legal" and then further enhance their overlord's protection rackets through government bureaucracy a/k/a "oversight."
This law is the "LOOK! SQUIRREL!" public relations approach to spotlight ("clean up") the malpractice of VEHICLE data capture; while it simultaneously accomplishes nothing to clamp down on rampant data collections abuses of the truest, most ubiquitous personal digital prison guard we have--the one that's carried in your pocket or purse. (Or the operating platforms running those devices, but I digress...)
... A 'de/googled' mobile phone, a stand/alone 'GPS Navigator' (WITHOUT "updates...") in place of your Convenient phone App.... and car servicing outside of the dealer network.
Or, same $$s spent on restoring an older luxury car for the 'Daily Driver' and limit a Company Car for 'work' ONLY.
1965 FJ40. No computer, no airbags, no GPS, Alternator, ignition key, battery, starter coil and distributor wiring harness. Put some LED lights and USB ports on it other than that as simple as a tractor.
It will run an other 60 years on LPG or methane that I squeezed from the gas bag political types when fuel gets scarce.
It's climbs the hill faster than the 2025 TLC diesels.
'Succinct summation...!'