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.
  • mrnobody@reddthat.comEnglish
    0·
    10 days ago

    What if:

    My car doesn’t have a cellular connection? Does it still spy?

    I have SatNav, but it doesn’t have a hotspot/wifi/cell, does it so collect data somehow? I’m guessing somehow over GPS/sat maybe?

    • dusty_raven@discuss.onlineEnglish
      0·
      11 days ago

      Serious question, what is the best solution to this? My household has three cars, the newest is from 2008. It makes me nervous as to what to do if I wanted a “new” car (I’d never buy an actual new car, just new to me and made in the last ten years).

      • rikonium@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
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        10 days ago

        Takes some checking about what makes let you disconnect or not. Toyota does, Kia has no option, base models might still have the “feature” omitted, etc.

  • Batmorous@lemmy.worldEnglish
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    10 days ago

    Time for opensourcevehicles and opensourcetransit to become a thing. I’m one of many people interested in doing that. Anyone have spitball ideas on how to go about doing that?

    Trying to think up some simpler first projects, how to get it funded, and how to get a community for that up and running

    Also, some people were interested in making opensourcebusiness community. If anyone is still interested then please do it there was 7 people I remember that were interested at the time for that

    We can also get opensourceanimation, opensourceuiux, and way more up and running. To slowly transform our world and get open source to grow even more

    Edit: Would be cool for people to get community projects made for bikes, electric bikes, bike-cars, cars, VTOL’s, and way more overtime. Trams, trolleys, trains, high speed rail, airplanes, submarines, airships, etc

    Edit 2: Main focus being people-focused transit. Didn’t realize I was in fuckcars. If we are going to have any transit might as well be open source especially EV’s

        • ilinamorato@lemmy.worldEnglish
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          10 days ago

          I’m not sure how much about a regular bike needs to be any more open source than it already is. The patent has long since expired. It’s not like there’s any major bike manufacturer trying to lock in owners.

    • MonkeMischief@lemmy.todayEnglish
      0·
      10 days ago

      I love the spirit! I think about open sourcing vehicles all the time, but unfortunately I think the biggest hurdle might be in what constitutes a street-legal vehicle.

      Even though there’s lots of dangerous problems with closed source cars, I’m pretty sure there’s some litany of safety / engineering standards that manufacturers have to meet, as well as passing “smog tests” in many places. (EVs still on the table tho…?)

      So, an open source vehicle would be more transparent, which would be a huge win! But also if it was a community initiative like say, RepRap, I imagine there’d be a lot of red tape with user-designed or hypothetically 3D printed cars or somesuch, especially when it comes to safety standards.

      The biggest worries I’d have would be how much interest such projects would get from safety engineers and other pros who know how to make the thing not kill the user.

      Am I way off? I’d love to hear I’m wrong and there’s plenty of hope for this to be a thing. I really hate modern car manufacturers. They all suck. Their proprietary lock-in and user-hostile attitude sucks. We need better. :)

  • ExLisper@lemmy.curiana.netEnglish
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    10 days ago

    It’s even trickier with EVs.

    On the one hand you can charge your EV at home and no one knows about it.

    On the other, you can’t pay for a public charger with cash, there’s always a trail. Cars have unique identifiers that are communicated to the charger when connected. Each time you charge in public they know exactly who are you and what car it is.

      • ExLisper@lemmy.curiana.netEnglish
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        10 days ago

        You can pay with cash at a gas station.

        Many smaller gas stations don’t have automated license plate scanning systems to track customers. I’m not even sure if bigger gas stations do it.

          • ExLisper@lemmy.curiana.netEnglish
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            10 days ago

            So I guess we don’t have to worry about privacy in cars. Since everyone is tracked anyway being tracked by your car doesn’t change anything.

            • Venat0r@lemmy.worldEnglish
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              9 days ago

              also your phone…

              But the car tracking you is another source of much more individualised data, and recordings of your conversations inside the car is much easier with better mics that a lot of cars have than a phone mic …

              Also it’s one more party collecting the data so more risk of leaks etc.

  • amino@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
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    11 days ago

    i wonder if snipping off your car’s modem completely stops the flow of data. like sure, your car’s CPU is still gathering that data but they have no way to retrieve it. unless you visit a dealership or authorized mechanic shop?

  • CompactFlax@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
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    11 days ago

    Subaru states that by being a passenger, you are considered a user — and by being a user, you have consented to their privacy policy. Several car brands also note that it is a driver’s responsibility to tell passengers about the vehicle’s privacy policies.

    No way that holds up in court. But in what situation would that appear in court unless someone has money to burn?

    • FEIN@lemmy.worldEnglish
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      11 days ago

      everytime WE get into a car with our friends we ALWAYS read the privacy policy aloud to them right guys

      • MonkeMischief@lemmy.todayEnglish
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        9 days ago

        (reads 15 minutes of legalese when the car starts)

        “I agree!”

        “I agree!”

        “I don’t!”

        “Isn’t there someone you forgot to ask?”

    • FireRetardant@lemmy.worldEnglish
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      11 days ago

      This kind of shit is what makes me not want an EV, that and I guess the ease of repair but that could change with proper regulation and resources. I’m all for EVs but my current relatively effecient ICE car doesn’t spy on me and that’s important as well.

        • pomegranatefern@sh.itjust.worksOPEnglish
          0·
          10 days ago

          It sort of has something to do with EVs, in that it’s hard to find EVs made before this was standard, so if you’re looking for cars without it it’s hard to find one that doesn’t have an ICE engine.

          (Where cars aren’t avoidable, I do prefer they be electric, as, I’m sure, do many, but the privacy concerns are apparently very real.)

          (Edit: hydrogen cars are indeed very neat and more environmentally friendly than electric cars, and in the most ideal scenario what unavoidable car/truck/van usage there was would be hydrogen-powered. It is not AFAIK practical for the average consumer at this time and requires substantial infrastructure updates which the individual consumer can’t really do much about beyond lobbying reps, so when it comes down to an individual who does need a car weighing what kind of vehicle to buy, I think it is fair to say that electric cars are better than ICE for the environment but, due to being newer, have more privacy concerns than old ICE vehicles. Neither is as good on either criterion as being able to just go car-free, of course.)

          • bearboiblake@pawb.socialEnglish
            0·
            10 days ago

            If it makes you feel better, EVs aren’t a real solution to the problems we face anyways, public transport was always the solution and EVs was a way to get consumers to keep focusing on individualism and consumerism to solve societal problems.

            Edit: So many replies falling over themselves about how EVs are a good “baby step”. They’re not. Hydrogen fuel cells is a good baby step. EVs are still extremely extractivist. Lithium batteries are very bad, environmentally speaking. Hydrogen is significantly cleaner. It is avoided because it would require unprofitable infrastructure to be rolled out to support hydrogen vehicles.

            • hobovision@mander.xyzEnglish
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              10 days ago

              Cars will always be the best choice for many many trips for many many kinds of people. Cities are most efficient but not everyone can be in one, and public transit doesn’t work in farmland. We need both. EVs is a way to reduce the use of fossil fuels in transportation. We don’t have time to wait to densify every city and build out good transit networks, that will take decades. EVs have real benefits today. It just sucks modern cars are nightmares.

            • FireRetardant@lemmy.worldEnglish
              0·
              10 days ago

              Rural places and bigots will still need or want personal cars. Some things like a trades work van or delivery service will still need a car/truck. These might as well be developed as electric. EVs are not the solution to our transportation and environmental issues but they are part of it.

            • phutatorius@lemmy.zipEnglish
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              10 days ago

              EVs aren’t the perfect solution. But they’re less bad than ICE vehicles, and are a good interim measure unless/until public transport becomes more viable.

              Don’t let the best get in the way of the good enough for now. It’s OK to be in favor of two things.

  • YoSoySnekBoi@kbin.earth
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    11 days ago

    The very worst offender is Nissan. The Japanese car manufacturer admits in their privacy policy to collecting a wide range of information, including sexual activity, health diagnosis data, and genetic data — but doesn’t specify how. They say they can share and sell consumers’ “preferences, characteristics, psychological trends, predispositions, behavior, attitudes, intelligence, abilities, and aptitudes” to data brokers, law enforcement, and other third parties.

    What the actual fuck

      • birdwing@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
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        11 days ago

        and not before it was produced? press x to doubt they actually removed it… If there’s no independent research and we can’t have the CEO’s own data, then take it with a big grain of salt

  • dan69@lemmy.worldEnglish
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    9 days ago

    “Analysts estimate that by 2030, car data monetization could be an industry worth $750 billion.” Yo I bare the weight of the ads on my public bus/train rides… now why the heck would I want a modern car?

      • bearboiblake@pawb.socialEnglish
        0·
        10 days ago

        They don’t want you to know this, but members of the ruling class are human and therefore actually very easy to remove from power. You just take all of the goo out of them and that generally works.

  • SpiceDealer@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    0·
    10 days ago

    Here’s some tips:

    1. Sticking to this community’s name, ditch the automobile all together and adopt a hybrid approach of cycling and public transit. Buy and/or build a good bike or e-bike and learn the local bus route and/or routes of any other public transit.

    2. For those of us still stick in Der Orangenführer’s fascist regime, stick to cars made before 2012. Some cars were going to high tech before this but it’s bond to be outdated but check if it’s still used.