Connected cars’ illegal data collection and use now on FTC’s “radar”
arstechnica.com
The regulator is warning OEMs to respect data privacy or it will get mad.

It’s not quite enough for me, personally, but this is a small step in the right direction.

I think that the real “down near the metal” solution is to own a dumb car, but those are getting thin on the ground . . .

  • @GluWu@lemm.ee
    21•1 month ago

    I’m honestly wondering if I can start a business “de-smarting” things. I had this idea a couple years ago when I was hardware disabling the microphone in my Comcast remote. I think the average consumer is realizing how much they are being tracked and do not like it. Enough that they would pay for solutions. The VPN market is massive.

    • Michael H. JenkinsOP
      8•1 month ago

      It’s a drop in a very large bucket that will never be filled, by design.

      • @Cheradenine@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        16•1 month ago

        Normally I would be with you but Lina Khan is doing good work. Blocking mergers for anti trust and working to ban non competes. Now putting automakers on notice about telemetry.

  • MaineDPC
    6•1 month ago

    Good to see. Hopefully some states add more pressure too.

  • AutoTL;DRBEnglish
    5•1 month ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:

    The Federal Trade Commission’s Office of Technology has issued a warning to automakers that sell connected cars.

    Just because executives and investors want recurring revenue streams, that does not “outweigh the need for meaningful privacy safeguards,” the FTC wrote.

    Based on your feedback, connected cars might be one of the least-popular modern inventions among the Ars readership.

    Last January, a security researcher revealed that a vehicle identification number was sufficient to access remote services for multiple different makes, and yet more had APIs that were easily hackable.

    Those were rather abstract cases, but earlier this year, we saw a very concrete misuse of connected car data.

    Writing for The New York Times, Kash Hill learned that owners of connected vehicles made by General Motors had been unwittingly enrolled in OnStar’s Smart Driver program and that their driving data had been shared with their insurance company, resulting in soaring insurance premiums.

    The original article contains 401 words, the summary contains 150 words. Saved 63%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!