Hacker News Reader

Comment by tashoecraft | Hacker News Reader

That’s great for you, but there’s been amazing advances in the world of automobile safety in the past 20 years. I’d rather improve my safety chances in an accident than worry about “tracking”.

View on HN

This is a false choice. There is no reason that safety would require commercial surveillance. Also, why did you put the word tracking in quotation marks?

They put it in quotes because no one is using these data to follow any individual’s life or movements. These days are all aggregated and/or anonymized before any detailed analysis.

Yeah they put tracking in our cars without telling us, but I'll trust them they won't do individual tracking because they pinky swear it. Unless law enforcement requests that data, but luckily cops only go after bad people, and there's no such thing as politically motivated prosecution.

Then it should be no big deal for a few concerned folks to opt out.

Tell that to Jim Farley, the Ford executive who infamously observed, "We know everyone who breaks the law, we know when you're doing it. We have GPS in your car, so we know what you're doing." He then issued possibly one of the most unconvincing retractions in the history of corporate newspeak the next day.

How can this days be properly anonymized? Even just knowing where a car is parked every night narrowed it down a good bit in most areas, combiner that with where its parked during work hours and you're almost certainly anonymized.

And yes, the analytics do track vehicle identifiers aren't truly anonymous. Many of the services Onstar offers, for example, wouldn't be possible without taking via unique identifier. The same goes for any vehicle that offers 4G/5G, mobile apps, remote unlocking, etc.

I agree with this, and I think it's analogous to the 2021 Catholic Grindr tracking saga [0].

It would be difficult to keep this type of data safe (in the sense of not allowing someone to use it to exploit a private person) without all the exigencies of "running a business" in 2023. Once you add those considerations, it seems impossible.

Even if GP is correct and companies all anonymize the data before analysis (which I absolutely do not believe), I am still concerned with:

1) Sale to outside parties including government, 2) Rogue employee with a grudge or a side business, 3) Data breach, 4) Internal policy change (juice revenue with DTC marketing?)

[0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/07/22/data-ph...

I agree, but that's not what the parent to whom I was responding to was describing. They said were holding on to their old car because of how simple and lacking of any tracking it had. I would prefer a newer car with better safety features even if it came with tracking.

Would I love a non tracking safer car? Sure, but options are pretty limited. You're saying it's a false choice to a statement I wasn't making.

Why is it a forced choice?

Agreed. I don’t understand the privacy obsession at the cost of all other comforts and features.

Maybe you should read a bit more about why the lack of privacy is a risk.

I would start by searching YouTube for “don’t talk to the police”.

I guess that's how they get ya!

The opposite can be argued too, I don't get the obsession with convenience above all else.

Personally I'd rather know that the government and private corporations can't track everything I do and decide that I should no longer have the right to drive my own car.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com