I was the first person to ask my Honda dealer how to turn off data sharing. It didn't go well....

There are lots of reasons to want to shut off your car’s data collection. The Mozilla Foundation has called modern cars “surveillance machines on wheels” and ranked them worse than any other product category last year, with all 25 car brands they reviewed failing to offer adequate privacy protections.

With sensors, microphones, and cameras, cars collect way more data than needed to operate the vehicle. They also share and sell that information to third parties, something many Americans don’t realize they’re opting into when they buy these cars. Companies are quick to flaunt their privacy policies, but those amount to pages upon pages of legalese that leave even professionals stumped about what exactly car companies collect and where that information might go.

So what can they collect?

“Pretty much everything,” said Misha Rykov, a research associate at the Mozilla Foundation, who worked on the car-privacy report. “Sex-life data, biometric data, demographic, race, sexual orientation, gender — everything.” . . .

  • SatansMaggotyCumFart@lemmy.worldEnglish
    211·
    6 months ago

    Sex-life data, biometric data, demographic, race, sexual orientation, gender — everything.

    Do the seats have genital detectors now?

    • xantoxis@lemmy.worldEnglish
      11·
      6 months ago

      lol I think they mean the car, since it knows where it is, can help car companies figure out who you’re banging because you end up in the same room as the other person’s cell phone a lot of the time while you’re at that address. (Cell proximity is already used heavily to correlate data points, so it can pitch birthday present ideas to you for your mistress.) In this sense it’s really no different than knowing what your favorite shoe store is, but they mention applications for abusers to track their exes and partners: thus sex life in itself becomes important.

      • Boozilla@lemmy.worldEnglish
        22·
        6 months ago

        I’m guessing they interpolate it from the places people visit. Fertility clinics, strip clubs, brothels, etc. There’s no lower limit for a data harvesting scumbag with an MBA and a “cool new idea” for the c-suite.

        • 800XL@lemmy.worldEnglish
          13·
          6 months ago

          Fuck, that’s totally it too. Scumbags with MBAs. The worst are the fresh out of college MBAs with no work experience that want to prove how “smart” they are.

      • perishthethought@lemm.eeEnglish
        7·
        6 months ago

        That. Their sound and video recordings could pick up whatever you do in the car. But I think this is really just lawyers being cautious. (I hope)