1. Data COULD be recorded onto a hard-drive in your car
2. Your car COULD transmit that data to the manufacture via a connected smart phone
3. Your car COULD transmit that data to the manufacture via a connected service (like GM’s on-via)
For #1, I’m checking with my car manufacturer to see if there is a way to do a “factory reset” of the data storage device. (I have no idea if my car has one but this is how I will word the question.) If there is, I will do such a reset regularly.
The good news is that the easiest way for car manufacturers to collect data on its victims, I mean customers, is to entice them to put an ap on their phones and use that as their conduit for data transmission. The bad news is that third parties can track you by other means. Your car aside, if you have your phone’s wi-fi and bluetooth turned on, your location is noted when it pings other devices as you travel.
McDonald’s was (and probably still is) recording license plate numbers at their drive-thrus.
There is nothing to stop McD’s from matching your licence plate with your smart phone’s unique identifier from your wifi / bluetooth and sell this info to data aggregators.
It gets worse …
One such segment of the data aggregation industry is databases of license plate recognition (LPR). This has already trickled down from government use to private industry. “...the Arden Fair Mall in Sacramento, where security officers employ two LPR-equipped vehicles to patrol the 77-acre property, across the American River from downtown. Each vehicle has two cameras that capture license plates of parked cars and feed them into the database, while the system checks to see if any of those have been reported stolen...Then there’s the multiplying factor of LPR data, cellphone data, Facebook posts, tweets and other sources of information about an individual.“This information gets combined with other information and there’s quite a portrait painted of this person”
The above article does not state if the ‘mall cops’ can off-set their cost by selling the data they collect. What if trucking companies were paid to put LPRs in their trucks to capture license plate numbers as they drive? What if governments get in on the game by doing this with roadside cameras?
What if auto insurance companies insist on this data as a condition of insuring your car? What if they sell this data?
Thanks for this! Preaching to the choir. Glad you stopped by. I fully agree and where does it stop. As Vision AI gets better not sure how we even have privacy anymore. Appreciate the comments. Good info for the readers.
The lynch pin in this is putting an ap for your car on your phone. Cars used to have a jack for an external input into their sound systems. However, with the proliferation of Bluetooth, this has disappeared in recent years. I connect my car's Bluetooth to an old phone with no sim card and a secure OS. Thus my car SHOULD have no access to the internet.
Check out this video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gR6eBN0fm8
There are a few takeaways.
1. Data COULD be recorded onto a hard-drive in your car
2. Your car COULD transmit that data to the manufacture via a connected smart phone
3. Your car COULD transmit that data to the manufacture via a connected service (like GM’s on-via)
For #1, I’m checking with my car manufacturer to see if there is a way to do a “factory reset” of the data storage device. (I have no idea if my car has one but this is how I will word the question.) If there is, I will do such a reset regularly.
The good news is that the easiest way for car manufacturers to collect data on its victims, I mean customers, is to entice them to put an ap on their phones and use that as their conduit for data transmission. The bad news is that third parties can track you by other means. Your car aside, if you have your phone’s wi-fi and bluetooth turned on, your location is noted when it pings other devices as you travel.
McDonald’s was (and probably still is) recording license plate numbers at their drive-thrus.
https://retailwire.com/discussion/mcdonalds-drive-thru-ai-knows-what-you-want-before-you-order/
There is nothing to stop McD’s from matching your licence plate with your smart phone’s unique identifier from your wifi / bluetooth and sell this info to data aggregators.
It gets worse …
One such segment of the data aggregation industry is databases of license plate recognition (LPR). This has already trickled down from government use to private industry. “...the Arden Fair Mall in Sacramento, where security officers employ two LPR-equipped vehicles to patrol the 77-acre property, across the American River from downtown. Each vehicle has two cameras that capture license plates of parked cars and feed them into the database, while the system checks to see if any of those have been reported stolen...Then there’s the multiplying factor of LPR data, cellphone data, Facebook posts, tweets and other sources of information about an individual.“This information gets combined with other information and there’s quite a portrait painted of this person”
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/license-plate-data-not-just-cops-private-companies-are-tracking-flna6c10684677
The above article does not state if the ‘mall cops’ can off-set their cost by selling the data they collect. What if trucking companies were paid to put LPRs in their trucks to capture license plate numbers as they drive? What if governments get in on the game by doing this with roadside cameras?
What if auto insurance companies insist on this data as a condition of insuring your car? What if they sell this data?
Thanks for this! Preaching to the choir. Glad you stopped by. I fully agree and where does it stop. As Vision AI gets better not sure how we even have privacy anymore. Appreciate the comments. Good info for the readers.
The lynch pin in this is putting an ap for your car on your phone. Cars used to have a jack for an external input into their sound systems. However, with the proliferation of Bluetooth, this has disappeared in recent years. I connect my car's Bluetooth to an old phone with no sim card and a secure OS. Thus my car SHOULD have no access to the internet.
I like that approach. I have a 2010 Chev I am about to pull OnStar out of and it still has a CD Player in it. That is my private car.