John Smyth wrote:
> 'Your car is spying on you.'
>
> <https://archive.is/OXWgW>
>
> 'It’s not just Tesla. Vehicles amass huge troves of possibly sensitive
> data.
> Elon Musk’s willingness to share information about the Cybertruck
> explosion has highlighted how much data cars collect -- and left some
> drivers uneasy.'
>
> 'Video footage and other data collected by Tesla helped law enforcement
> quickly piece together how a Cybertruck came to explode outside the
> Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas on New Year’s Day.
> The trove of digital evidence also served as a high-profile
> demonstration of how much data modern cars collect about their drivers
> and those around them.
> Data privacy experts say the investigation — which has determined that
> the driver, active-duty U.S. Army soldier Matthew Livelsberger, died by
> suicide before the blast — highlights how car companies vacuum up reams
> of data that can clear up mysteries but also be stolen or given to third
> parties without drivers’ knowledge. There are few regulations
> controlling how and when law enforcement authorities can access data in
> cars, and drivers are often unaware of the vast digital trail they leave
> behind.
> “These are panopticons on wheels,” said Albert Fox Cahn, who founded the
> Surveillance Technology Oversight Project, an advocacy group that argues
> the volume and precision of data collected can pose civil liberties
> concerns for people in sensitive situations, like attending protests or
> going to abortion clinics.
> ??
> Follow Technology
> Follow
> Federal and state officials have begun to scrutinize companies’ use of
> car data as evidence has emerged of its misuse. There have been reports
> that abusive spouses tracked partners’ locations, and that insurers
> raised rates based on driving behavior data shared by car companies.
> There have also been cases in which local police departments sought
> video from Tesla cars that may have recorded a crime, or obtained
> warrants to tow vehicles to secure such footage.
> “There’s something deeply ironic that this emblem of personal autonomy,
> the idea of a car on the open road, might be one of the most heavily
> surveilled places in many of our lives,” Cahn said.
> More than 75 percent of car brands said they can share or sell drivers’
> data, according to a 2023 Mozilla Foundation report assessing 25
> international brands’ data privacy policies. More than half said they
> can share information at the request of law enforcement or the
> government. Only two, Renault and Dacia — neither of which is marketed
> in the United States — said drivers have the right to have personal data
> deleted, the report said.
> Industry groups say data collection protects drivers and allows
> automakers to identify potential defects. Sensitive information can’t be
> used for marketing or shared without consent, the Alliance for
> Automotive Innovation said in a 2023 memo.
> “Yes, your vehicle is generating and transmitting certain safety data.
> That’s by design,” the memo said. “No, your car isn’t spying on you.”
> Many cars have access to location data and camera footage if they’re
> equipped with features such as parking assistance and navigational
> systems. But Tesla likely has access to far more data thanks to its
> suite of cameras used in its driver assistance features, its onboard
> computers and its nationwide charging network.
>
> Three front facing cameras on a Tesla Model 7. (Mark Leong for The
> Washington Post)
> Tesla chief executive Elon Musk directly assisted investigators in the
> New Year’s Day Cybertruck explosion and provided charging-station
> footage tracking the suspect as he drove from Colorado to Las Vegas, Las
> Vegas Sheriff Kevin McMahill said. Musk offered investigators “quite a
> bit of additional information” on the truck and sent a team to Las Vegas
> to help investigators extract data and video from the charred remains of
> the truck.
> McMahill also said investigators were looking for vehicles that may have
> been at the charging stations at the same time as the suspect, “because
> their vehicles would have also had cameras that would have taped anybody
> in and around them.”
> On Thursday, the team of investigators in Las Vegas — which includes the
> local sheriff and FBI — showed video footage of the suspect, recorded
> from multiple different angles, at a Tesla charging station in Arizona.
> Las Vegas Assistant Sheriff Dori Koren did not specify how that exact
> footage was obtained, but said the Tesla team sent by Musk helped
> investigators recover a thumb drive that “records other types of data
> that includes video by the Tesla.” The team also helped investigators
> retrieve data from the vehicle that determined it was not in
> self-driving mode at any point during Livelsberger’s journey to Las
> Vegas.
> While Musk’s swift assistance was applauded by authorities, his highly
> publicized actions also raised complicated emotions for people like
> Justin Demaree, a Cybertruck owner and Tesla enthusiast, who runs a
> popular YouTube channel called Bearded Tesla Guy.
> Demaree said while he appreciates Musk’s willingness to help
> investigators — especially in a case the FBI was initially probing as a
> potential act of terrorism — the incident showcased just how much
> personal information Tesla has at its fingertips about its drivers.
> “It’s a double-edged sword,” said Demaree, 36, as he drove his
> Cybertruck in “Full Self-Driving” mode from Orlando to Las Vegas to
> attend CES, the prominent annual tech conference. “We want our privacy
> and we don’t want our data shared … but you want to help in a situation
> where terrorism could be a factor.”
>
> Tesla owner Adam Gershowitz, a law professor at William and Mary who has
> studied police searches of digital data, said he is willing to sacrifice
> a level of privacy for the convenience of the car’s navigational
> systems, infotainment centers and backup cameras at their disposal.
>
> “The thing that makes it so dangerous from a privacy perspective is the
> same thing that makes it a terrific automobile,” he said.
> Still, Gershowitz said, it makes him uneasy to consider how quick Musk
> was to share the information that immediately dispelled speculation that
> the explosion was caused by an issue with the vehicle itself. As
> investigators pieced together the case on New Year’s Day, Musk has
> posted developments on social media — in one case appearing to beat law
> enforcement to confirm the explosion was caused by fireworks and a bomb.
> He cited the vehicle’s telemetry, the technology that automatically
> gathers and relays data.
> Carter Gibson, a 34-year-old tech worker in San Francisco who owns a
> Rivian — an electric vehicle also chock full of sophisticated technology
> and cameras — said he doesn’t mind if the data is used to enhance public
> safety or track those who have caused harm and done something illegal.
> While the amount of available information opens up new problems around
> profiling and data sharing, he said, he believes it could be a net
> positive for society — if done correctly.
>
> Carter Gibson, 34, with his Rivian. (Carter Gibson)
> Gibson, a Rivian enthusiast who runs a subreddit of more than 100,000
> users about the car, said Musk’s willingness to share information so
> openly was “creepy” and has shaken his trust in how Tesla deals with
> customer data.
> “I, like most people, am not reading the privacy policy in detail,
> everyone just hits ‘agree,’” he said. “But this is where brand
> perception really starts to play a role in how safe people feel with the
> car.”
> Tesla did not respond to a request for comment.
> The cameras on Teslas and autonomous vehicles can record what is
> happening around them — a level of “passive surveillance” that is
> invaluable to police, said Matthew Wansley, a professor at Cardozo
> School of Law who focuses on the intersection of technology and law.
> If law enforcement needs information about what happened outside a club,
> for example, they might say, “Let’s just call Waymo,” he said, to see
> whether one of the robotaxis now rolling in San Francisco and other
> cities was driving by.
> Waymo and the Autonomous Vehicle Industry Association did not respond to
> requests for comment.
> Beyond such passive collection of data, drivers unwittingly give away
> information about themselves when they rent a car, data privacy
> advocates say.
> Rental companies typically opt in to tracking services and other
> functions that vehicle owners could turn off, said Eva Galperin,
> cybersecurity director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
> If the car title is in its name, the rental company has control over
> location history, biometrics and any other personal information a renter
> leaves behind, said Andrea Amico, who founded a company called
> Privacy4Cars that works to protect consumers from vehicle data
> collection.
> “You have zero rights,” Amico said.
> The Cybertruck in the Las Vegas case was rented through Turo, which
> operates like an Airbnb for vehicles. The company did not immediately
> respond to a request for comment, but its terms of service say hosts —
> the owners of the rented cars — may collect nonpersonal information like
> acceleration, location and direction. Users authorize the use or
> disclosure of such data unless prohibited by law, the policy says.
> The American Car Rental Association did not respond to a request for
> comment.
> Amico got the idea for Privacy4Cars while running a used car inspection
> company. One day, he saw the navigation system in one of the cars still
> had directions to the previous owner’s home.
> “I can see the name of the person because they synced their phone … I
> know where she’s taking her two daughters to school. I know which cancer
> hospital she’s going to,” he said. “That’s when I went, ‘Oh, s--t.’'
>
i don't have a car