Connected Cars Will Run on Your Personal Data
Fully autonomous cars won’t be deployed en masse for a while, maybe even decades. In the meantime, cars that are smarter and more connected than your average sedan are already sitting in parking lots and driving on highways, and they’re collecting all kinds of information about you. US privacy laws aren’t doing enough to keep up.
Other countries are taking note. A Canadian Senate committee last month flagged privacy and security as major issues of the coming internet-connected automotive revolution, and Europe’s impending General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) will set the global bar on data privacy. The US, however, has consistently erred on the side of business when it comes to data privacy. The world, and the US in particular, is woefully unprepared for the lightning-fast advancements being made in the connected-vehicle industry—and that should be a cause for concern.
“This is the kind of technological advancement that’s intended to bring public safety and individual safety to the forefront,” Albert Gidari, the director of privacy at Stanford University’s Center For Internet and Society, told me over the phone.
“But the trade off is, you’re sacrificing individual privacy for the common good.”
Read More: Driverless Cars Are Giant Data Collection Devices, Say Privacy Experts
The data-gathering possibilities in a connected car are endless. Engine performance, telematics, the music you listen to, the locations you visit, the phone conversations you have via the infotainment system, maybe even your eye movements, your pulse, and your unique voice signature, can all be recorded and mined for data. The patchwork of privacy laws in the US leaves gaping loopholes that effectively grant private companies free and unfettered access to massive volumes of data for current and future, to-be-determined usage. You can bet all your bitcoins that the automotive business will take advantage of this.
The details of this data-gathering are densely written and buried deep in user manuals and terms of service agreements, never to be looked at or understood. We usually aren’t told where and how the data is stored, nor how it will be used.
