{"id":22409,"date":"2022-11-08T23:52:09","date_gmt":"2022-11-09T07:52:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/?p=22409"},"modified":"2022-11-24T00:12:06","modified_gmt":"2022-11-24T08:12:06","slug":"politicians-underestimate-smart-cars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/politicians-underestimate-smart-cars\/","title":{"rendered":"Politicians Still Underestimate Smart Cars’ Threat to Privacy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

It was three years ago that we blog wrote about the privacy problems raised by \u201csmartphones on wheels<\/a>\u201d \u2013 the fact that today\u2019s vehicles contain powerful computer systems and a wide range of sensors that are constantly sending back data to manufacturers. The politicians are finally starting to wake up to the threat. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Elizabeth Warren, the US senator from Massachusetts, has sent a six-page letter<\/a> to the top anti-trust enforcers in the US \u2013 Lina Khan, chair of the Federal Trade Commission, and Jonathan Kanter, who heads up the antitrust division of the Justice Department. In it, Warren expresses her \u201cserious concern\u201d about emerging competition and consumer protection issues in the world of smart vehicles:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Big Tech is setting itself up to be a one-stop shop for automakers \u2013 for everything from data collection, cloud storage, and analytics to in-car navigation to voice assistants to autonomous driving capabilities. To achieve this dominance, Google, Apple, and Amazon are leveraging their market power in the mobile operating system, digital app markets, and data infrastructure spheres to become the dominant players in the automotive sphere.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The Elephant in the Car<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Warren makes a good point, but the problem is still much bigger than this indicates. Even without \u201cBig Tech\u201d moving into this sector, there are already large numbers of companies that are gathering and using highly personal data generated when people drive their vehicles. The most complete and up-to-date review of the situation is \u201cWiretap on Wheels<\/a>\u201c, put together by the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project (STOP, report also available as a PDF<\/a>) which summarizes things as follows:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Modern cars collect a huge amount of data, stored indefinitely onboard and in the cloud<\/strong>. The data tracks not just the car, but its occupants: it records our location history, phone contents (contacts, emails, texts, tweets, social media feeds), voice recordings, weight, and other biometric data. If this sounds creepily expansive, it is. Car data often is collected for the benefit of manufacturers, not drivers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our information fuels a billion-dollar industry <\/strong>centered on subscription services and on selling drivers\u2019 data to third parties, including law enforcement. Many cars on the road feed this industry: 84 million connected cars beamed data to manufacturers and other companies in the U.S. in 2021. Drivers can refuse some data collection, but saying \u201cno\u201d often comes at the cost of passenger safety: no data, no emergency roadside service or built-in navigation tools.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

What Personal Data Do Cars Collect?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

There are three main sources of personal information on cars. One is the old \u201cblack box<\/a>\u201d that continuously monitors a vehicle so that investigators can review key information after an accident. These black boxes have been around for many years, and are now nearly ubiquitous, but store relatively little data \u2013 typically just 30 seconds of information around a serious event, such as a crash.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Much more problematic are the telematic systems<\/strong>. These are what makes today\u2019s vehicles smartphones on wheels, as they generate and record a wide variety of information from sensors built into the vehicles: <\/p>\n\n\n\n