In recent years, carmakers have turned your vehicle from a product you own and control to one you merely use and license, much like
software. The mechanisms of this are hidden between dozens of pages of
terms and conditions.
Apart from its implications of what “ownership” really means, there is the fear that the location and personal data collected by your car
infringes on your privacy as it is inevitably transferred to the car
manufacturer and sold to third parties. This is similar to the practices
at telecommunication providers, which have, in some of the worst
examples, put people in dangerous situations by selling their location
data to stalkers.
Does your rental have car spyware?
Rental car companies were among the first to seize the opportunities from readily available surveillance technology to start car tracking
their customers. This was driven partly by their interest to introduce
new fees, reduce insurance costs, enforce contract limits, fight theft
and gather data about their clients’ behavior.
Hertz went as far as installing microphones and cameras in their cars, although the company later insisted those were never turned on.
Rental companies that fined their customers for speeding (with payments
that went to the company, not the local government) were found in
violation of the law.
When you rent a car, you might have some choice between different rental companies and their policies regarding surveillance. But
ultimately, the company owns the vehicles and can install surveillance
tools at will.
Some of these tools might even go beyond simple spying, such as locking your car if you take it out of a designated zone or off-road.
The renter might then have to pay a fine to regain access.
Cars leased or financed can also be subject to agreements that allow car manufacturers or the leasing companies to scoop your private data.
Mercedes-Benz was caught handing this data to bailiffs in cases where
drivers were behind on their payments.
The new normal
Almost all modern luxury cars are connected to the internet and have some location tracking device installed, either based on GPS or its
Russian counterpart Glonass. The car tracks its location passively,
though some actively send it to remote servers when a mobile internet
connection is available.
These systems can be used to save lives, for example in the event of an accident, but can also allow authorities and criminals to locate you
in real time whenever they desire. At the very least, the data can be
obtained from your car using the on-board diagostics (OBD) systems,
which have become mandatory for cars sold in most countries since the
early 2000s.
Ford executives have publicly bragged about their ability to know where each of their cars is at anytime to detect traffic violations such
as speeding. Some cars even have cameras pointed at the driver at all
times to detect whether a driver is sleeping.
Many of these features will help make driving safer. But with a car’s software becoming the most valuable intellectual property inside a
car, systems remain heavily locked down, leaving consumers unable to
verify the mechanisms that control access to cameras and sensors.
Consumers instead have to trust the manufacturer and their government to respect their privacy and follow the law when accessing
sensitive information. This is not acceptable.
Smart car tips: How to stop your car spying on you
While people do like buying smart surveilled electronics, surveys also show they care about privacy. Consumers have to be alert
about smart car dangers and demand to be informed about their car’s
capabilities and data policies.
Purchasing an older, used car without internet connection and cameras is always an option, too.
Eventually, we will either see car makers become more transparent about what they do or earn our trust in other ways.
We might see cars developing similarly as phones, for which the open-source operating system Android competes with closed-source Apple
iOS. Android users are able to install their operating system
themselves, while Apple users trust the manufacturer to respect their
privacy.
In both cases, users often make the decision between opting in to draconian surveillance regimes and protecting their personal
information.
When comes to the issue of online privacy and security, we suggest to use a VPN, and our recommendation is RitaVPN. RitaVPN is a relatively
new VPN service, but it’s already making a name for itself,which makes it one of the best VPN in 2019.
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