It can’t be illegal because you agree to allow them when you purchase the new vehicle. It’s all there in the T&C and PP, which no one ever reads. Don’t like it? Don’t buy new cars. I won’t.
Illegal terms in T&C are still illegal regardless of whether you agreed to them or not in the US.
So if I buy a used car they can’t do all that right?
Right?
Same privacy policy authorizing them to harvest your data, but older cars have a more limited capability to collect data compared to newer cars filled with sensors, cameras, and phone integrations. Plus older cellular networks are defunct for older vehicles so they can’t just exfil it without you helping or bringing it in to physically access it.
The issue is that this 20 year old car is not going to last forever or have replacement parts available forever. We need better privacy laws, because time and entropy will eventually force us all into this evil mess.
Agreed! What would be amazing though, is a manufacturer who could make a modern safe bare-bones vehicle that didn’t have the tech installed at all. If you want tech you could BYO.
Yes, I drive so rarely I would honestly be happy with any crappy old stereo to save a few thousand bucks. I’m lucky my ~2015 car still has completely separate radio and functions (climate, errors, etc.)
I would want to put in a good dashcam system though. Give me the bones; then let me DIY
Obvious next question: how’s the privacy policy on 3rd party stereo makers like Pioneer, Kenwood, Alpine, Jensen, etc.?
Why risk it? Build your own with a raspberry pi and a touchscreen.
This is what I want, but they make it very difficult to build something with parity unless you’re willing to sniff CANBUS codes one by one
unless you’re willing to sniff CANBUS codes one by one
This would only be necessary for cars with climate control in the touchscreen right?
Got a link to a good project of that type? I’ve been thinking about this recently.
Should be better since they usually don’t have an uplink capability. But be real careful of any model that has Internet for any reason.
Setting aside questions of legality, it seems kind of like it wouldn’t encourage someone to purchase their cars.
Not a problem! Jack used car prices up to new cars, prevent public infrastructure and provide benefits for cars, all car manufacturers have similar privacy policies. Combine all three and you have customers that need a car to live, might as well get a new one if decade old ones are the same price or have no stock, and suddenly there isn’t much choice.
Yeah but the vast majority of car buyers won’t know about this or care. We’re all privacy advocates here but everyone and their mother is on Facebook or Instagram and is happily giving away all their information already anyway.
We’re all up in arms about this here in this thread, located in a self-selecting micro-community of people centered around a shared interest in the control of our data. If you called your mother and told her about this would it stop her from buying a new car in the future?
Correct, the vast majority of people don’t care.
That only helps when there’s viable alternatives. Since pretty much all auto manufacturers do something like this it’s not really a distinguishing feature.
And even if it was: how much worse/more expensive would a car need to be for you to not pick it over one that reads your text messages. And then ask the same question not for “you”, but for the average consumer. Then be sad …
Wait, how are CARS intercepting mobile activities?
Through android auto and apple car play would be my guess, but i don’t know.
There’s no way Apple lets the automaker access app data from your phone. Apps on the phone can’t even see data from other apps on the phone.
There are two ways I can think of for the infotainment to get the messages. The first is by OCR-ing the CarPlay screen, which is shady as hell. The second is a feature like this one where the car has Bluetooth notification integration.
One of the things it asks permission for when hooking up Bluetooth etc is “call history”, “contacts” or “text messages”
I’d assume the system needs those to read it messages or call/redial. It wouldn’t need OCR to do other things with that data
Apple probably just lets it happen.
Regarding OCR theory, the screen never shows messages. It only will read them aloud because you’re driving and shouldn’t be reading your texts.
Apple doesn’t allow it. Users do , when they agree to share whatever let’s the funny nightmare rectangle play trendy and pleasant sounds from car sound nozzles. While also an automated voice reads texts aloud in the name of hands-free, for all occupants (and some outside if the volume is up). And also it needs to contact info, to make calls for all the silly-fillies that want to use siri while driving. And shoot to reply to meemaw with a family photo siri needs to access your images.
Meanwhile your new infotainment system is sending all this off like a $45,000 copier that it is, sending it off in packets when it gets wifi signals, because the kids needed in-car wifi for their Xbox on road trips.
When you connect to Bluetooth, it asks your phone to share call, contact and SMS information.
Think like the old horrible headunit text implementation, the ability to scan your contact list from the car, and see your recent calls.
When you comment to Bluetooth, it asks your phone to share call, contact and SMS information.
So they are intercepting your calls and messages with your permission? I don’t see the problem. If you don’t want them to do that, click “deny” when your phone asks if you want to share them with the car.
“I don’t understand, if you don’t want crushed orphans, just don’t toss them in the orphan crushing machine”
Well maybe they shouldn’t have an orphan crushing machine in the first place.
I think it’s more of an issue with what the car does with that data. Is it communicated to you in some way, or sent to headquarters to be added to your file for future sale?
If it’s the former, no harm no foul. If it’s the latter, it needs to be burnt with fire.
Mozilla tested a bunch. Try a search on the platform and see.
So ask the judge why car companies want to track judges?
I mean ok but the fact that your car is spying on you has to break a thousand big tech nda’s
Isn’t this just a basic legal concept?
“In order to claim damages, there must be a breach in the duty of the defendant towards the plaintiff, which results in an injury”
Basically the judge is saying the plaintiff didn’t establish the basic foundation of a tort case. He’s not saying this isn’t wrong, he’s saying they didn’t present the case in a way that proves it.
It’s not enough to say “you shouldn’t be doing this”–even if that’s true.
the question here is, on it’s face does an invasion of privacy constitute an injury? I’d argue that yes, it does. Privacy has inherent value, and that value is lost the moment that private data is exposed. That’s the injury that needs to be redressed, regardless of whether or how the exposed data is used after the exposure. There could be additional injury in how the data is used, and that would have to be adjudicated and compensated separately, but losing the assurance that my data can never be used against me because it is only know to me is absolutely an injury in and of itself.
I mean how did I get checks from Google and Facebook for violating privacy then?
The lawyers proved the case
Take a page from the conservative/GOP playbook and just find an activity judge who will wholesale accept your fabricated claim and provide a favorite judgement.
Sure except under this logic there’s no injury to someone peering through your windows. After all they didn’t do anything else…
Nice take.
I myself am fine with the ruling, but only if we get a full-ownership deal on the car, and can legally completely gut and replace parts that do that. Also, the car should be sold with a warning label regarding these issues.
Just gotta get someone to hack their system. Then it’ll be easy to prove damages
I recently found a video talkkng about privacy. One of the topic was that privacy does not ring any bell in people’s mind. Contrary to intimacy. Maybe we should all replace privacy by intimacy so we can tell what is really implied to non software people
America sucks. Seriously. I’m just waiting for another country to bring it to the USA, because it seems inevitable.
People gotta stop putting faith into these ultimately crooked nations.
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Well… fuck. More reason to not buy newer cars. At least you Americans are lucky. You can drive a dinosaur if it met with regulations. You technically don’t have to buy new cars… ever.
The scary thing? Define “new”. This judgment is from a lawsuit in 2014. So any car made in at least the last 9 years is doing this. Maybe newer cars are doing even worse things.
Yep.
Thank goodness for Signal
If you connect your phone to the car, can it spy on your Signal messages? I mean, they have to decrypt on your end for you to see them, right? Or has Signal taken specific steps to stop this?
At least with my headunit (2015 Toyota). It cannot read the signal messages. Additionally, I remove contact and text permission from Bluetooth to be especially sure.
This is the real answer to everyone. Limit access to the Bluetooth connection or don’t use the headunit.
Thanks for the info!
