- cross-posted to:
- news@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- news@lemmy.world
Toyota, Progressive Insurance, and a data analytics firm are now being accused of collecting detailed personal driving information without proper consent
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Super conflicted about this one. For sure, im against their (mis)use of user data and that is bad in all sorts of ways. buuuuut, i cant help but smile a bit about the fact that asholes driving like maniacs are getting some sort of punishment. I’ve met them and i wish them hell.
They ding you for everything even you have this feature enabled for you (knowingly or unknowingly). Remember hearing about a user whose cat would run in front of his car when he was parking it at the end of the day. Car registered it as him almost hitting an object.
Drive on super bad/winding roads with bad lines? Lane assistance might show you as going over the lane lines that aren’t even there.
This service won’t be used to lower rates.
Hmm, ok. Didnt know that and Im a little bit less conflicted now.
It would be kinda cool if you could submit dashcam footage of people cutting people off and blowing down the road at 3x the speed and have their insurance company see it though.
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
How’d they do it? Contract ended or petition?
Neither. The city shut them down in direct response to it coming into the open that they shared data with federal border patrol, claiming a contract violation.
Leave your mobile phone at home as it knows when you’re driving, speed, acceleration, routes, times. Then you have the CCTV on the roads tracking your every move with your licence plate and facial recognition.
And when you get home turn off the smart TV, smart fridge, smart dishwasher, doorbell cameras, Alexa’s, Google’s. These devices aren’t for our convenience primarily; they’re built to collect our valuable data about our living habits.
Digitally connected electricity, gas and water meters all monitor our usage thus working out our lifestyle patterns and habits. Even smart lightbulbs have the capacity to snoop on our private lives.
From the moment we wake up to turning off the light these connected devices quietly gather data about us innocuously… even when we sleep (phones monitoring breathing sounds).
You can get “smart” devices that do not sell your data, but they are less common and they can be hard to find when shopping. You may not get a choice about “smart” meters, but you may be able to obfuscate your electrical usage with batteries. However, if the batteries have an internet connection they’ll probably sell your data.
I totally get that sentiment, but there have been significant safety improvements in the last 20 years. Your chances of escaping serious injury in an accident are a lot better with a 2025 car than a 2005.
I have a 2024 and I don’t like that it’s probably sharing data, but I specifically didn’t get an older used car because they’re much less safe. I pay $90 for full coverage for two drivers in Denver without the telematics app discount.
Are you threatening higher insurance rates for someone who wants to drive an older car, in the name of safety?
Sounds like insurance companies punish drivers who can’t afford/don’t want new cars with higher rates, while using safety as a scapegoat.
Older cars would be perfectly safe if newer cars weren’t gigantic land battleships.
Lol, I’ve seen this stupid take so many times here. You should educate yourself on car safety. There have been a lot of important safety innovations over the past 20 years and cars get safer every year. I’m significantly safer in my newer smaller-than-average car than I would be in the same model from 20 years ago.
Car insurance is a scam.
I’ve wondered a bit about taking the head unit from my jeep and playing with the data it receives, like telling it I’m going 3MPH all night long, or telling it I’m going 600MPH. Ultimately though I’m just going to get rid of it and get something older.
I want it shut off. I like the safety sensors but those can be passive and not telemetric.
I want people who look in my cars computers to search for info to find NOTHING.
If you just want it off that can be done too, but it depends on the vehicle as to where the modem is. For my Jeep its behind the head unit and seems to be a major pain to get to, but really its just a couple pieces of trim and a headunit in the way.
The only reason I haven’t is because I want to just get rid of it and get something more basic.
I like this one. I hate other drivers on the road.
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.”
Even searching for someone obsessively online and being a little TOO interested in them online is cyberstalking.
The line there is different than in off-line settings, but it does exist. Someone who is a fan of an entertainer and likes all of their online posts is one thing, but a person who has plans that involve harassment is something else.
Precisely right. We should press charges against all the big tech companies for stalking us.
There won’t just be an “AI” bubble burst if this surveillance tech bros crap goes on for too much longer. Everyone wants to be an overlord. No one just wants to make a reasonable healthy profit anymore.
It’s because high constant profits were never sustainable. Perpetually maximizing GDP in the short term was never a good idea to begin with. But that’s the macroeconomic policy.
We’ve been preventing all forest fires at all costs and guess what - there’s still gonna be a big forest fire.
Yes they do. The issue is that people won’t really tell each other about products and business that are doing that. They won’t boycott the bad shit, either. That goes for everyone… BMW, IBM, and BOSS are still around and that’s the tip of the list.
In order to get seen you got to pay those people that want to be an overlord.
So you see the issue.
Can’t you rip out the wifi radio, or cover it in aluminum foil or something? This is ridiculous.
You can pull the fuse but this also disables Bluetooth iirc.
Pull the fuse, good idea! I bet that would set off all kinds of alarms in the car’s computer and it would constantly tell you to go in for service but that’s a decent trade off.
There’s always another fuse you can pull to make that go away as well.
At this point just throw the car battery away.
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
I don’t give a fuck, I will do it anyway. I do what I want with what I own.
Plus they can pull the data if you bring it for service.
The Mozilla foundation did a great report on cars & privacy.
I bought a new dishwasher and that wants to be connected to the internet “to let me know when it’s finished”.
Matter over Thread is what you want. It means it can work locally with anything. You do need a Thread controller (called a “thread border router”), but most people already have one. Google Home, Alexa, or Apple things all do it.
Ikea is starting to move over to this stuff. Just be aware that they’re also trying to get rid of the old tech still.
Why though? Why does he want a networked dishwasher at all? There’s no benefit or reason for that in the first place
I really hate those guys, you know. They really are the creeps of the cosmos, buzzing around the celestial infinite with their junky little machines that never work properly or, when they do, perform functions that no sane man would require of them and,’ he added savagely, ‘go beep to tell you when they’ve done it!’
Ford Prefect
“So long & thanks for all the fish” Douglas AdamsSome people would like the feature where they are notified that the job is finished but don’t want to allow it to connect to the manufacturer. That would be possible if you could get one that uses Thread over Matter.
Most people either don’t care about the feature or don’t care about their privacy so it’s a real niche market.
My 15 year old dishwasher makes a happy little jingle when it’s done to let me know it’s finished. Alternatively, I can just look at it the next time I’m in the kitchen and see if it’s done. I can’t think of any scenario where I am so pressed for time that I must be notified the second my dishwasher is done, but also be far enough away that I don’t hear it’s pretty loud jingle. All so I can… What? Do another load of dishes? Who would ever need that?
Yeah but it seems clear from @MonsterMonster@lemmy.world’s comment that they also think this is frivolity, so the unrelated niche market is a moot point in this case.
My new air purifier wants to connect to my wifi network. No thanks, I’m good.
Yeah, I’m fucking done with cars. Can’t afford em anyway.
Another reminder why I chose to own a bicycle.
I saw someone riding a bike the other day on the road and feared for his safety.
I couldn’t do that to my ancestors
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.
As we learned in Minnesota, vaguely gesturing your car in someone’s direction is grounds for summary execution without investigation. Things are different for bicyclists now.
You pointed that bike at that agent. Clearly you are an antifa death squad. Or I’m sorry three star antifa general involved in terror plots on american greatness, likely out of your freedom hatred. Something something transexuals woke radical left you had it coming! /s
This is such a bad precedent because it’s on video, there is no question as to the truth of the matter. The agent engineered the situation, used his phone hand to touch the car as it was moving to make it appear like he was hit, and they cynically used that to claim so, despite frame by frame analysis that gives lie to all of their story.
Their cheerleaders supporting this, pretending to believe the lie, or god forbid believing it, because they think they don’t like the executed, are fools. Federal agents should not be summarily executing anyone on the street without cause then slandering their victims to justify it afterwards. That is something everyone agreed on not long ago. A good share of conservatives might still agree, but just believe the execution was self defense, but too many don’t, and relish the others getting targeted as if they will forever remain safe from being labelled an other. As if when they achieve absolute power they won’t shrink the old boy clubs.
Not an option for many of us.
Who asked?
Shut the fuck up.
Thanks.
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.
I’m saying on the shoulder of a highway, not in the lane. Riding on the right hand side means constantly looking back over your shoulder, and trusting cars to have seen you and not decided to bust onto the shoulder. It’s madness, and it’s a misunderstanding that leads some people to think you are supposed to, experts have made it clear it’s safer to see traffic coming at you in such situations so you can get out of the way.
And ha, no, you can’t ride your bike where I am right now as I explained. There is no shoulder, you are in the lane, lanes covered in packed down snow. Baby thinking is a rather insulting way to respond to a situation you clearly do not understand. Riding in the lane with cars going 55 mph or faster on ice and snow cannot be done here right now, snowplows leave 4 or a 5 feet of snowbank off the road, something someone from new england should know, city boy.
I got a laugh out of that “baby thought” jab. I’ve lived where it wasn’t safe to walk by the roads during winter, much less cycle there. With no bike lane or even a road shoulder to speak of and a foot or more of snow, you end up with two choices: cycle in a snow bank or hope traffic isn’t coming when you end up horizontal in the road.
So do nothing. Don’t fight for better infrastructures, just stay car centric. I love paying thousands of dollars a year to get to work/shops/friends. Wah wah.
I’ve ridden these roads in winter. I’ve done it from necessity. Yeah it’s scary at first. No, not all places it’s possible, yes, it could be done more if not for your preference for comfort. Wahhh “I can’t and nothing can change this”. Fucking hell. I’m a down vote queen today eh? Y’all need to watch some “just not bikes” and maybe help change perceptions.
Or stay in your comfy car. I don’t care. I’m literally in the position where I can’t get a job because I don’t have a car, or a bike, or public transport, and a kid with mad appointments right now. And I’m extra spicy about it. I miss being free on my bike and marking open availability on job apps. I’m spicy okay? Down vote away. I uses to ride 7 miles in winter, snow, sleet, ice, to be at work for 6 am. Then seven miles home, 6 days a week. Two years. It can be done. Its not fun no, but its not like, the most difficult thing either. Y’all just used to comfort. I’m used to poverty. It’s fucking fine.
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 the Europe and other democracies or just import ChEaP cHiNeSe CaRs?
At least in the EU we should have opt in for any communication. I don’t really get it why there is no such law in place, even more so when we have GDPR and annoying cookie dialogs. 🤷♂️
Firefox extensions allow for auto clicking no on those forms. Which I do want to exists.
GDPR is getting some changes & megacorps aren’t even actually adhering to it when it’s too good for them not to (eg MS cloud).
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?
Progressive sells this as a service, you put their tracker in your car and it adjusts your rate based on driving patterns.
Oh, that’s common nowdays, as devices in olden days, now just insurers apps (depending on local laws it might only adjust your discounts, not base premium, but same diff). It predominantly lowers claims.
What isn’t common (afaik, that’s my question) is a third party doing that through general data brokering.
A bit like you driving badly on local news, the insurer sees that & ups your premium. It’s accepted with life insurance (bcs tos), but not reallynon-lifecar insurance. Idk tho, markets differ a lot.
similar report about China’s BYD you are whatabouted to death
Nobody pretends that BYD cars don’t do that. Plenty of articles get posts here trying to create a false impression that China is uniquely bad in this regard.
You can have data sovereignty by mandating as much, Chinese cars already are built to comply with regulations of their markets.
Chinese companies must report to the Chinese party-state, and that includes sending data back to China collected also by cars. There is ample evidence for this. The Chinese government’s grip on its companies to ‘collaborate’ has even been growing stronger in recent years.
So? China doesn’t control my insurance rates. If someone has to get my data then I’d rather it be them instead of Trumpistan.
Well, in USA private companies do that all the time too bcs of the grip of the two-party system on private companies, eg it seems authorities have seamless access to Ring cameras.
I think that sort of thing is a given and part of your regular country risk. In most big countries it’s just a question how much the gov runs companies or the other way around.
But regulation can help a lot.
Eg EU could mandate a physical switch for wireless data (ie manufacturer) in cars.… or you know, even mandatory foss or you-own-the-product-you-buy laws.
The Chinese party-state seems to be having problems telling these manufacturers to stop underselling each other right now.
Not related to the current thread but I thought it was interesting.Literally any country can subpoea car manufacturers data. And the data simply would not be collected if regulations required it. This applies to every country.
What’s your deal with China? 98% of your posts seem to be any articles you can find that amount to “china bad”.
He’s a member of the China Bad Times Club https://lemmy.ml/post/39655060
Maybe it’s time to create some rules about data brokering? It’s not really about tracking and consent, it’s about who can sell what data about whom to what parties.
It’s become an enormous business, it deals with you and I, it delights in living in the shadows, and it is almost completely unregulated. I don’t really care if Toyota records my data, I care that it’s allowed to sell it or share it.
I think a reasonable first step would be that all data about a specific person belongs to that person and nobody else. We have rules about photos, we need to expand them to data brokering, because the problem is the same: if you can be identified and placed, you are at risk.
Yeah i agree with most of what you said. I don’t have massive issues with companies tracking and recording data. By default they should only be allowed to use that data themselves (which can get a bit murky when the company in question is that of a conglomerate) and you should have to explicitly allow the sharing of data to third parties that is separate to standard TOC’s.
GDPR tried to solve this but it kind of made a lot of the options available to the user a bit of a mess and overwhelming because there’s not much regulation about what can be done with data (somewhat - there actually are limitations but it’s not very well enforced), just that the user has to say they agree. And that’s not even thinking about how the banners and pop ups are obtrusive as fuck.
I’m not smart enough to know what the actual solution should be other than I know it needs to be better than it is now.
When approaching this proposition, remember that there will be a lot of push back that might sound sincere but remember that there are a lot of people in the data mining business and they will definitely not be arguing in good faith.
You can’t even assume they’ll be people at this point.
But think of the poor shareholders and their yearly revenue growth being slowed down. Don’t be selfish bro.
/s
Maybe we can just learn to disable the parts of the vehicle that spy on us. It’s actually a federal felony to alter programming on products like this that we own. But maybe a surgically placed electromagnet or cut wire could do the trick?
Because government will not be fixing anything for the better. This is the best the government will be for the forseeable future.
Maybe it’s already called GDPR?
The same GDPR that allows every website or app to share your data with their 816 partners, as long as they claim they have a ‘legitimate interest’?
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
My new car had a whole Wikipedia worth of terms and conditions in the screen that had to accept before turning on for the first time.
There was no alternative other than “accept” or “leave the car at the dealership and pay the most expensive parking in the world forever”.
The fact that they can sell you a car without having to give you all of the terms and conditions is kinda nuts. Imagine if you went to buy a house and they just went “Nuh uh, pay first, we give you all the HOA rules and city ordinance laws you have to follow afterwards. What is in them? It’s a mYsTeRy!”.
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.
It’s not real consent if you’re forced to agree to use the product or if the terms allow the company to alter the terms.
Further, like, as a third party I can’t really consent. Say I’m out on a walk and I pass a Tesla, or that Tesla drives by me. It has a bunch of cameras, it’s recording a bunch of shit. I as a passerby have no ability to consent or decline being recorded just going about my business.
I fucking hate that. Every time I see a modern car I’m grossed out because I feel like I’m being watched.
And it’s so ubiquitous that the only way to avoid them altogether is to become Amish.
Good luck never agreeing to binding arbitration. And even if you do get out of it, good luck ever holding them accountable in a class action. You might be able to file a class action, but no one can join you.
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.
So are Facebook and WhatsApp. If you’ve never used either of them they definitely know who you know and have a data entry with connections ready for you to claim if you do sign up to them.
Is it consent if it is forced?
No one is forcing you to use their services
If you need a service and every competing service has the same practice, then yes they are.
Oh, I agree, I just meant it as that is how they see it
You must not be from earth friend.
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.
We’re sorry!
Little look at Julian Assange. Look at North Korea. Look at porn. Look at open source encryption. Look at the tor network. Look at mesh wifi. Look at private dns. Look at ungoogled chromium or librewolf. Look at webgl. Look at a little porn again. Look at the stars for a while. Look at signal. Smoke a cigarette and finally look at yourself
That’s unchecked capitalism
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.
Hahaha welcome to the eu
“T&Cs update : please agree to 80 pages of impenetrable legal jargon before you can continue to use your vehicle”
That’s why I say it must be a written, separate contract. And not signing it must be without consequences regarding other contractual obligations.
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.
That’s the Terms and Conditions that nobody reads.
The t&c are not a separate contract, though. Its a “take it or leave it” signing here gets you the car and the agreement to be spied upon.
I’m not talking about a “one click for everything”. I’m talking about a separate, written contract that can be cancelled at any time, without cause for any other obligation.
I read them all now with Chatgpt. Just fed it in and summarize
Notarized. The agreements need to be notarized.
Why
Because the seriousness of this contract should require proof that you agreed to it
A little click box is fine for something that doesn’t matter, but for lifetime real time surveillance, that’s important enough that you should have a serious contract with proof that you actually signed it
I feel like this was something that needed to be stopped decades ago but now it’s just not possible to do this. You can’t wait until it’s this big then start thinking how to change it
The other option is to look at the possible outcomes and in this case the direction we are on is unacceptable.
Better to start now because it gets costlier by the minute to delay.
That which is unsustainable tends not to be sustained.
And you have to be able to cancel it at any time.
In the owner’s manual, it says you consent to data collection by driving the car and if you don’t consent, you should return the car to the nearest dealer.
Fuck them and the horse they rode on. Stuff like that needs to be made illegal.
I’ll bet if you tried it the dealer would refuse to take it back.
I’d like to be a fly on the wall in that court case.
