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Automatic Transmission – a data-privacy study of connected vehicles

262 points · 235 comments · rafaelc

  1. hattar · · focus · HN ↗
    I currently drive a mid 2000s Ford truck, which runs great and meets my needs, but lately I got interested in minivans/people carriers. I pretty quickly realized that newer vehicles seem to not just record, but export a lot of driving data.

    The minivan market is small. There are really only 4-5 available and every single one sends telemetry data from the car and makes it hard/impossible to opt out of selling your data. Additionally, without pretty extensive work there is no means of physically disabling the telemetry, which forces you to trust they'll honor your opt out request (vs re-enabling it with some update).

    I'm clearly in the vast minority on this, but it's so frustrating that there are no options beyond buying and installing a third-party bypass to disable this type of tracking. Worse, I'm aware that the absence of data is data itself. Is my insurance going raise my rates because my vehicle won't provide telemetry for them to buy?

    1. Barbing · · focus · HN ↗
      > Is my insurance going raise my rates because my vehicle won't provide telemetry for them to buy?

      Thanks, I hate it.

      1. m463 · · focus · HN ↗
        You can get tesla insurance and it monitors your driving.

        If you do not agree to this monitoring, they will not insure you.

        also, full self driving (or autosteer) both require the cabin camera to be enabled and to monitor you.

        1. kridsdale1 · · focus · HN ↗
          Tape over it.
          1. techdmn · · focus · HN ↗
            I taped over all my Tesla cameras (except the backup camera). The real issue was that the person I'm teaching to drive kept checking the screen for things like where to stop at a stop sign, or to see if the car thought they were too close to the curb. Couldn't have that.

            Responses are typical: "That's so unsafe!" Imagine the response if they ever learned I routinely ride a motorcycle that doesn't even have ABS!

            Then we get to the security aspect. I'm supposed to trust cameras, connected to the internet, on closed-source hardware, run by a vendor that has a history of misusing the data? No thanks.

            1. [deleted] · · focus · HN ↗

              [deleted]

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