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Comment by rdtsc | Hacker News Reader

> The suit also cites Allstate as gathering direct car use data from Toyota, Lexus, Mazda, Chrysler, Dodge, Fiat, Jeep, Maserati, and Ram vehicles.

Seems like the bigger part of the story is at the bottom. You can uninstall GasBuddy from your phone but finding and buying a new car that doesn't track you is a bigger hassle.

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I like to post this investigation by Mozilla's "Privacy Not Included" whenever car privacy comes up, because it is actually horrendous.

https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/blog/privacy-nightmare-on-...

>Mozilla’s latest edition of Privacy Not Included reveals how 25 major car brands collect and share deeply personal data, including sexual activity, facial expressions, and genetic and health information

Huh, how? Why would someone have a vehicle with someone else's internet connected camera inside?

a lot of modern automatic driving stuff has cameras to track your eyes, and I think for built in dashcam stuff maybe?

and if it's in the car it's Internet connected now.

Why would society not mandate cameras to make sure the operators of thousands of kilograms of metal at high speeds are paying attention to the road instead of their phone? And to be able to punish them if they are not.

Assuming pedestrian and children’s safety is a priority.

That can and should be done without phoning home. It's the invasion of privacy that's the issue, not the safety feature itself.

That’s true, as long as the footage is saved to a device that is not tamper-able.

Did you just float "won't someone think of the children?"

Why wouldn’t I think of children?

Isn’t one of the most common ruminations of modern society that children cannot roam freely due to excess risk of being hurt or killed by a distracted driver?

https://www.consumeraffairs.com/news/these-vehicles-may-pose...

>IIHS says pedestrian crash deaths have risen 80% since hitting their low in 2009. The statistics show that 2021 was almost as deadly to people on foot as last year. Nearly 7,400 walkers — more than 20 people a day — lost their lives in 2021 after being struck by a vehicle.

Airline pilots get recorded, why shouldn’t drivers?

> Airline pilots get recorded, why shouldn’t drivers?

AFAIK, general aviation pilots are not recorded. Black boxes are only a thing in commercial aviation, so a more appropriate analogy would be the recording of bus or semi-truck drivers.

There is far less moral hazard as a general aviation pilot because death/grave injury is far more likely in an airplane collision, whereas a personal vehicle driver is relatively safe, especially in vehicles most dangerous to others

Regardless, what is and is not required of all pilots is beside the point. The point is society implements a safety/accountability measure to prevent x rate of injuries/deaths…but society does not implement the same safety/accountability measure to prevent y rate of injuries/deaths where y is far greater than x.

The discrepancy is because it is politically unpopular to hold the people causing the larger rate of injury accountable (voters who drive personal cars), whereas it is politically popular to hold the people causing a smaller rate of injury accountable (commercial pilots).

>> "won't someone think of the children?"

> Why wouldn’t I think of children?

The g-parent describes a narrative that is designed to seed an untrue notion that no one is thinking of the children.

For the same reason you don't wear remotely controlled collar on your neck that paralyzes you in case you're doing something dangerous.

A recording of whether or not a driver is distracted driving to be able to prove it is not analogous to a collar that paralyzes someone.

I don't see any difference. You can and will do harm and we just want to prevent it. The collar goes in different styles and colors, you'll love it.

I guess being permanently paralyzed because someone rams into you because they were checking their texts or TikTok is not harm, but a video recording of someone not paying attention to the road is harm.

> Assuming pedestrian and children’s safety is a priority.

It really isn’t a priority (in the US anyhow) otherwise we’d have far more and far better public transportation.

I don't think it occurs to the average person that when you buy a vehicle, some parts of it might still be "someone else's".

Sex?

How do they triangulate that from car telemetry?...blood pressure/heart rate signatures from face? Suspension rocking in a park at night? Maybe they pull it from your phone.

I don't trust the manufacturers, but Kia seems to have said they have the right to collect sex info, but haven't. [0]

> “To clarify, Kia does not and has never collected “sex life or sexual orientation” information from vehicles or consumers in the context of providing the Kia Connect Services.”

[0] https://nypost.com/2023/09/06/nissan-kia-collect-data-about-...

Where you drive and how long you stay there at night, correlated with your partner's connected car.

It's not a camera in the bedroom but you can pretty easily extract relationship graphs from geolocation tracking and proximity. US intelligence agencies have been doing it in the middle east for ages...

There are occupancy and weight sensors in the passenger seat to disable the airbag for children. Maybe if they see a high frequency pattern....

“For every GM vehicle, before any connected vehicle services are activated and before any data is ever collected, the vehicle owner must accept the OnStar Terms & Conditions and Privacy Statement. These detail our data practices and are available online for consumers to review before they even walk into a dealership.”

It's all spelled out in an 4pt light grey font that you clicked through without reading. So it's your fault we know you're pregnant before you do.

Great article. I remember seeing that a year or two ago but had long since forgotten about it.

> Several car brands also note that it is a driver’s responsibility to tell passengers about the vehicle's privacy policies.

"Hey Bill, before we go to lunch, gloss over my Nissan's EULA."

I think I might start buying older cars and just swapping out the engine instead of putting up with the telemetry. If the car has a SIM card, I don't want it.

Even in the flood of terrible news about privacy and other things, this exposé stands out as especially disturbing. I was considering getting a new electric car to replace my combustion, but now I'm going to stretch it for as long as I can instead.

This seems to run completely contrary to Mazda's own Connected Services Privacy Policy, which states that by default (ie if you aren't paying the subscription for connected services, or never enrolled in it), they don't share info outside of Mazda, other than aggregate data for research purposes. Even the section discussing if you are an active subscriber indicates that your written consent is needed before it's shared with unrelated third parties.

https://www.mazdausa.com/site/privacy-connectedservices

There is a potential loophole:

Third-party service providers: We may share your Personal Information with third-party service providers that we contract with to provide you with the Mazda Connected Services, as detailed in this Connectivity Privacy Statement.

The Artity (allstate) SDK offers some utility like "fuel efficiency tips", but it is a cover to collect data.

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