When do companies ask for consent? Look at Google and incognito mode. Look at 23&me, I can go on. And nobody sees anything done about it. We are numbers. Not people. That's our world
They ask for consent in the terms and conditions, you know, that long annoying text that no one really reads when signing up for stuff.
That is where they put the consent.
The thing about 23&Me is that they’re collecting data not just on the people who signed up for the service - the ones who actually skipped and accepted the T&Cs - but their family members as well.
Seen the third party message on the Wirecutter comments section?
“If you comment on these socks we’re recommending YOUR DATA WILL BE SOLD!!!”
Incredible and actually good guy vendor (Disqus) in a way for not hiding it unless it was their lawyers’ doing :)
And that toothpaste is not getting put back in the tube.
Now That is a powerful cat.
They ask for consent when they operate in the European Union
Funny that 23andMe is the Google founders wife’s company.
The only way to truly avoid that outcome is with enforceable rules around consent, transparency, and control, letting drivers see exactly what’s being collected, who it’s going to, and giving them a real way to say no. That, or skip the connected car entirely and drive something that isn’t quietly reporting back every time you hit the brakes.
Yeah none of that's gonna happen anytime soon. When my 16 year old car bites the dust my next car will be another one from that same era. I'm not letting big brother know everything about me and jack up my insurance rates for the privilege of being spied on.
Amen. We all drive cars older than 2015, and I've gone against anything newer.
The other issue is all those Flock cameras all over our state and surrounding areas, is almost impossible to not be tracked. I didn't consent to those being used by or municipal or city.
I'm sick of being data points on a spreadsheet!!
I'm so happy my city took down our flock cameras
These behaviors will only get worse, unless we change the system. We just need to help each other understand that, and then execute it!
My car is 26 years old, truck is 30... No internet connectivity there, and yet my rates going up steadily every year with nothing on my driving record. 🙄
They charge you extra since they can't sell your data.
Time to make data sharing illegal. If it is technically needed, the industry needs to have a written contract with the user, which describes in detail which data is shared. It must be a separate contract from anything else, and one each for each industry partner.
"T&Cs update : please agree to 80 pages of impenetrable legal jargon before you can continue to use your vehicle"
All carmakers are doing that, not just Toyota. If someone posts a similar report about China's BYD you are whatabouted to death, but if it is about a non-Chinese carmaker, there are no whataboutisms.
Is the data collection good or bad now? Should we have digital sovereignty in Europe and other democracies or just import ChEaP cHiNeSe CaRs?
[Edit typo.]
All car makers talk to insurers?
(I know they collect personal data.)
How often is it even legal for car insurance premiums (which is different from discounts) to change based on observed non-incident data (eg driving style) of an individual?
Can't you rip out the wifi radio, or cover it in aluminum foil or something? This is ridiculous.
TCU is what we are looking for here, in modern automotive terms.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telematic_control_unit
This is the spyware box in most modern vehicles. Can you find it? Can you unplug it? What happens when you disconnect it from the computer bus of the car? Those are the questions we need answered for every car on the road, for our mutual benefit.
Manufacturers will certainly argue that voids the warranty. They might even win that fight in court these days.
Chew through the wires and tell them it was a rat
Spyware in our cars? This is unacceptable.
YEAR OF THE LINUX CAR
2036 maybe
But can I choose the distro?
i use carch btw
Another reminder why I chose to own a bicycle.
I used to dream to have a car, but the more I grew up, the more I realize just how fucking hard it is to have one, especially paperwork and driving demands more situational awareness, of not just the space around the car but also other vehicles on the road.
Not an option for many of us. Even in the city, where I've gotten around on bicycle for years and years with no car before, it was a hostile environment, and motorists hate bicyclists with a passion. I didn't ride in the street either like in the lane holding up traffic either. But many would go out of their way to hit you, including police. I was too quick for them though.
I rode my bike in the a smaller city for nearly a decade regularly just fine. The one time I was hit by a car, luckily barely, I was on foot.
To me, here at least, when I left the small city,that's where it gets wild. When the place has no pedestrians, and it's all cars only, with really limited side walks. Those are the scary places to ride.
Yeah in the country it's a different beast entirely. Riding on the shoulder of highways and county roads. I do the left side so I can see the cars coming at me and get out of the way. Going with traffic on the shoulder is madness and trusting everyone to see you and not hit you, yet half the population thinks that's the way it should be done.
But good luck getting anywhere in the country right now on a bike. There are snowbanks piled up, little shoulder is left off of main highways, you would have to ride in the road, switching back and forth left to right to avoid incoming cars, or stop and pull yourself into the snowbank. It's just not possible for me here. Half the year it's just not possible in much of the north.
I've always been more comfortable riding with traffic, and I don't understand how it feels safer going opposite. But I'm not a rule enforcer, do what's best for you. Anywhere without common walkers/public transport too. Its not just like, "the country". Suburbs and strip malls.
I've also ridden in winter, in New England. It's baby thought thinking you can't. No bad weather, just bad dress, and you warm up quick.
Honestly if a car has any form of internet connectivity built in, it should raise so many red flags before you even sit down to talk financing.
Good luck finding a modern car that doesn't, I just yank out the power to the modem
my rates do seem high. I had a wreck a few years back but it was a dented door and fixed just fine. I work from home so I dont drive all that much, and the car is cheap. But it does have telemetry. I wonder if I should just bridge a resistor across the onstar antenna terminals
Casually reading, you could put a 50ohm or larger resistor there.
You will have a better result removing/disabling the module completely. There are several searchable tutorials based on the vehicle module.
Yes but if it ever goes into the shop a software update can teach it to misbehave when things are disconnected. An artificially weak signal, on the other hand, would fall under a practical failure mode they would have accommodated for in firmware.
Ah, I don't think about dealerships unless I'm looking for used cars. I repair everything I own the best I can and move on when I can't. It's stressful, but I prefer it to a payment.
What amazes me is how many people not only willingly giving up their privacy without any understand of what it means to do so or the implications of it, but also so many have a defense of 'if you are in public you have no right or expectation of privacy at all'.
This is bullshit. While you have a reduced expectation of privacy by virtue of being in public, the fact that your movements are alp documented so completely either by private or public entities without warrants, your face and expressions and dress scanned, and even videos you watch on your phone based on some flock cameras I have seen is an outrage.
People have a right to sometimes just go out and disappear for a while. I used to do it all the damn as a teenager and very young adult. I didnt run away from home or skip school, but I needed genuine alone time to think and let my mind and body feel free for a moment and give myself a minor mental reset. This is impossible if I am on camera all the damn time. The last thing I want is to take a walk through some artsy parts of town or a park and then get ads on 'want to escape? Here are some nice vacation spots to go to', or get ads on shit just because I did some window shopping or in-store browsing.
And then there is this shit. How all that spying affects you financially and maybe even professionally as AI now is reviewing CVs and you better damn well believe that they will be integrating all information on you if you apply anywhere.
And for the 'this prevents crime' shit no it does not. Crime resolution rates have been dropping throughout even the wealthiest most surveillance heavy countries. A study from around 20 years ago in the UK showed thay the places with the most cameras don't have less crime or more solved crimes than those with less cameras. More funding for police and more police tools have ironically lead to a massive reduction in murder rate resolution in the US and elsewhere. Which is surprising snd terrifying... because just how many innocent people have been put in prison in the past without anyone knowing?
It is entirely about social control. Have you ever wondered why protests seem to be less effective and there aren't that many revolutions or successful coups as there were last century? That is why. (And yes I am aware they still happen, but they are much harder to pull off)
The best example I've heard is, if I wait outside your house and follow you around everywhere you go, every single time you leave the house, even though you're "in public," that's still a crime and it's called "stalking."
Precisely right. We should press charges against all the big tech companies for stalking us.
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