Hello John and Doves,
Just got my weekly Malwarebytes Newsletter. One of the articles is about modern cars and what they know about our private lives; this was discussed on the Lock and Code podcast.Vehicles - this is just another means of gathering information on every. one. of. us.So, for just FYI -"A team of researchers at Mozilla which has reviewed the privacy and data collection policies of various product categories for several years now, named "Privacy Not Included", recently turned their attention to modern-day vehicles, and what they found shocked them. Cars are, to put it shortly, a privacy nightmare""According to the team's research, Nissan says it can collect "sexual activity" information about consumers. Kia says it can collect information about a consumer's "sex life". Subaru passengers allegedly consent to the collection of their data by simply being in the vehicle. Volkswagen says it collects data like a person's age and gender and whether they're using your seatbelt..."Car companies can collect "social security numbers, information about your religion, your marital status, genetic information, disability status...immigration status, race." This information is collected from "the cars, the apps, the connected services, and everything they can gather about you from these third party sources and they can combine it into these things they call "inferences" about you about things like your intelligence, your abilities, your predispositions, your characteristics."
What does a car need to know about your sex life?
And in this article at Wired.com - "Vehicles from Toyota, Honda, Ford and more can collect huge amounts of data.""Cars can track where you're traveling to and from, record every press on the accelerator as well as your seatbelt settings and gather biometric information about you. Some of this data is sold by the murky data-broker industry."Modern vehicles are actually "smartphones on wheels" as they've able to collect heaps of data and wirelessly send that information to manufacturers."Using the Privacy4Cars tool to analyze publicly available documents from vehicle manufacturers. They looked at Toyota, Honda, Ford, Chevrolet, Ram and Jeep and ran them through the privacy tool.Here's some of what they found - more at the link:Toyota (Tacoma, Camry, RAV4, Highlander): Toyota can collect your "driving behavior" - acceleration, speed, steering, braking functionality, saver favorite locations and images gathered by external cameras and sensors (seems they all ca do this) Some models of Toyotas can also scan your face for face recognition when you enter one of its vehicles...Toyota can verify an driver's identity and profile that is stored on a vehicle....any facial features are only stored on the vehicle and not transmitted to Toyota." And Bluetooth information "remains on the vehicle and is not sent to Toyota.Honda (CR-V and Civic): Honda collects contact information, Social Security numbers, driving license details, your location...and they can see your call history, voice commands, search content, driver behavior; the airbag system can collect weight and body position but that's only stored on the vehicle.Ford (F150): Ford collects driving data and characteristics, such as your speed, how you push the pedals, and seat-belt-related data. Your travel direction, precise location, speed and local weather can be gathered from the vehicle." "Voice recognition systems in some of its vehicles can gather information when they are listening."Chevrolet (Silverado): GM Motors collects both information about you and what you do with your vehicle, as all manufacturers we analyzed do." GM collects people identifiers like names, postal addresses, email addresses, your location, route history, your speed and "braking and swerving/cornering events". Also data can be collected from "camera images and sensor data, voice command information, stability control or anti-lock events, security/theft alerts and infotainment (radio) system and WiFi data usage. "The company can also receive "information about your home energy usage" this is relating to EV charging.Jeep and RAM (Grand Cherokee and Ram Pickups): "Stellantis can collect your name, address, phone number, email, Social Security number, and driving license number". Also, they collect your speed, acceleration, braking data, details of the trip (including location, weather, route taken), cruise control data, images from cameras....All (most) manufacturers collect data on battery levels, tire pressure, car status, refueling activity and images from cameras and error codes. "Your face and fingerprint data may be collected if you use services such as digital keys, that need this kind of information to operate..""Drivers have been warned that cars present a "privacy nightmare" with vehicle manufacturers collecting extensive personal data on drivers, even including their sexual activities. A study of 25 car brands found they all failed consumer privacy test carries out by internet-focused non-profit Mozilla Foundation. Its research found that 84% of car companies review, share or sell data collected from car owners." These companies collected "more data than necessary". "The Mozilla research suggests that six car companies can collect intimate information, including driver's medical information and genetic information. "In 2021, Tesla said cameras were disabled in China after the vehicles were banned from Chinese military facilities because of supposed security concerns."
From sex life to politics: car driver data grab presents ‘privacy nightmare’, says study | Nissan | The Guardian
Wow - this is a big heads up. If the government (like the DoD) wants to latch on to this information there is nothing stopping them. They have all kinds of ways of getting personal information about us - that's absolutely none of their business. And "..all manufacturers will provide data to the government or law enforcement when it has a legal request to do so."
Just something else to be aware of as censorship gets more and more intrusive.Maranatha!Chance