Your car is spying on you.
That is one takeaway from the fast, detailed data that Tesla collected on the driver of one of its Cybertrucks that exploded in Las Vegas earlier this week. Privacy data experts say the deep dive by Elon Musk’s company was impressive, but also shines a spotlight on a difficult question as vehicles become less like cars and more like computers on wheels.
“You might want law enforcement to have the data to crack down on criminals, but can anyone have access to it?” said Jodi Daniels, CEO of privacy consulting firm Red Clover Advisors. “Where is the line?”
Many of the latest cars not only know where you’ve been and where you are going, but also often have access to your contacts, your call logs, your texts and other sensitive information thanks to cell phone syncing.
This isn’t unique to Tesla.
There was a case several years ago in the UK, dubbed The crossbow killer where the cars (Land Rover Discovery) telemetry was able to provide a picture of what was happening with the car, such as which door was open for and how long, as well as things like the vehicles location.
The article above goes into the particular details about each element of telemetry and how it was used to piece together a puzzle or evidence against the murder.
There’s a podcast about the case called “The crossbow killer” by BBC Radio Wales that’s worth a listen.
Yeah. It’s every new vehicle out there, dating back probably 10-15 yrs or so. I had a 2017 Ram 1500 that tracked me, which is why I didn’t sync my phone, etc.