It’s coming from inside the car!
I’ve told you about the AI-enabled cameras that can tell if you’re speeding — or on your phone. Now, car manufacturers are joining the assault on your privacy.
‘Our investigation revealed that General Motors has engaged in egregious business practices that violated Texans’ privacy and broke the law. We will hold them accountable.’
Take Ford, for example. The iconic American company recently filed a not-so-American patent for technology that would allow a car to snitch on drivers.
Entitled “Systems and Methods for Detecting Speeding Violations” — not quite as catchy as “Built Ford Tough” — the patent filing details a system that would use vehicles’ cameras and sensors to detect speeding motorists and report them to authorities.
The filing includes basic sketches and flowcharts illustrating how this technology senses speed violations, activates cameras to capture images, and transmits data to nearby “pursuit vehicles” or logs it to a server. The captured data, including speed, GPS location, and clear imagery or video, can then be sent to authorities for potential action.
According to Ford, it is developing this technology for police cars. In other words, don’t worry: This invasive surveillance tech will be exclusively in the hands of the state.
And I’m sure the company would never think of adapting it so your own car can inform any nearby police that they should pull you over.
Then there’s GM.
Did you know the company’s so concerned about empowering you to keep your data secure that it just consolidated five different lengthy privacy statements into one disclosure document?
Talk about putting the customer first! Yeah, a massive lawsuit and widespread public backlash have a way of encouraging that.
Last month, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed suit on behalf of the state against GM, accusing the automaker of installing technology on more than 14 million vehicles to collect data about drivers, which it then sold to insurers and other companies without drivers’ consent.
The suit contends that the data was used to compile “Driving Scores” assessing whether more than 1.8 million Texas drivers had “bad” habits such as speeding, braking too fast, steering too sharply into turns, not using seatbelts, and driving late at night. Insurers could then use the data when deciding whether to raise premiums, cancel policies, or deny coverage.
The technology was allegedly installed on most GM vehicles starting with the 2015 model year. Paxton said GM’s practice was for dealers to make unwitting consumers who had just completed the stressful buying and leasing process believe that enrolling in its OnStar diagnostic products, which collected the data, was mandatory.
“Companies are using invasive technology to violate the rights of our citizens in unthinkable ways,” Paxton said in a statement. “Our investigation revealed that General Motors has engaged in egregious business practices that violated Texans’ privacy and broke the law. We will hold them accountable.”
This isn’t the first time Texas has stood up for its drivers. In 2019 Governor Greg Abbott signed a bill to ban red-light cameras, two years after KXAN-NBC in Austin, Texas, reported that almost all cities with red-light cameras had illegally issued traffic tickets.
Their investigation also found that drivers paid the city of Austin over $7 million in fines since the cameras were installed, and cities in Texas made over $500 million from the cameras since 2007.
