BMW: ADMEN have asked us for YOUR connected car DATA

This could really hurt the rollout of connected cars and eventually self-driving cars

I had decided years ago that if I buy a new car that includes something like OnStar I'd remove the SIM, because I don't want to be able to be easily tracked. But now that I carry a phone with me everywhere, worrying about the government tracking my car is pointless - I'm forced to trade that privacy if I want a smartphone.

If I have to worry about Google-like data slurping for advertisers I may be forced rule out buying a new car and stick to the used market, because "connected cars" do not provide me anything I care about. When we reach actual self-driving cars someday, then I'd probably be willing to make that trade because that's a pretty big step up in convenience.

You can bet Google won't have any compunction about selling us out if any automakers use their technology for self-driving, so hopefully there will remain options like BWM that refuse to sell us out - similar to the Apple option where I pay more for my phone but don't get sold to advertisers like Google does for Android.

It had better be optional...@nematoad have an upvote!

I'm a fellow Dinosaur and I don't agree with the concept of a connected car either. It had better be an option, just like the dongle that you can choose (so far) to have installed that rats you out to the insurance agency for high acceleration/deceleration. The insurance agency is only the tip of the iceberg, what about the state or federal governments, the banks, manufacturers etc? They could all make your life pretty miserable if they wanted to. Besides tracking your movements, they can disable the vehicle anytime they want. I will not buy a car with OnStar or any other similar system. I am already "connected" as much as I care to be.

The other problem is that the more complex the manufacturers make their products, the more that will go wrong with them. They DON"T care because it raises profits for the dealer and the manufacturers.

I grow wistful for that old '59 Ford Fairlane with the six cylinder I had years ago that had enough room under the hood to smuggle 5 people into the drive in (let alone the trunk). It was easy to fix because it was easy to understand and you did not need to drop the engine to change the plugs or the headlight bulbs because they left ROOM to work on it. Almost like the engineers knew what they were doing back then.

Should you not be concentrating on driving when you're operating a tonne+ of metal at speed?

I can think of circumstances when knowing -say- what food is available in the next few miles would come in handy; but it should absolutely, definitely and positively be a pull from the driver (after they have got safely into a lay-by or (let's be honest) a straight bit without too much traffic) and not a push from advertising companies. Otherwise it's dangerous and will kill people sooner or later.

Also, the data belongs to the car owner. It is very important to remember this.

Many people don't own their cars..

..they lease them.

This gives automakers an incentive to monitize you.

By selling your info they can reduce the cost of your vehicle..

(except it won't)

Companies getting the data for marketing purposes could be annoying, but governments getting the data to store as "intelligence" could have far worse consequences. Instead of using manpower and detective work, police would far rather sit in an office and let a computer do the legwork. So they may, for example, get a computer to sort through terabytes of data to determine which cars stopped at and left the scene of a crime at about the relevant times. Any matches sees the drivers suddenly subjected to a very unpleasant time - maybe even found guilty of a crime. Juries are apt to fall for "scientific evidence" as being "proof beyond reasonable doubt" (look at DNA evidence). In this case "computer says he is guilty" could be persuasive. The problem of course being that the more data you have, the more matches you will get purely due to coincidence, but to the average juror it will still look extremely improbable that you drove to 5 different places at exactly the times they were robbed purely by chance.

Weasel words

"had so far resisted requests"

Should be "under no circumstances will accede to requests at any time in the past or future". Not that it will affect the probability of my ever buying a BMW.

I don't own nor want a "connected car". The used market with cars prior to this whole "connected car" nonsense works just fine for me. I have a cell phone if I need to "connect", but there are laws in my state that deliver heavy fines for texting and driving, so a connected car isn't providing me with anything I need or want. But if I did want a connected car, it's good to know that BMW protects user info in the EU. I seriously doubt they'd do that here in the USA.

So how much will I get paid?

First off, I will never buy a "connected" car if there is any way for it to phone back my present location (without me hitting some emergency button first). I don't trust GM (or Toyota, or BMW, Audi, Hyundai, etc.), don't trust advertisers (the US basically has no privacy laws the way most EU countries do) and don't trust the Feds to not override both of the above to slurp data (not to target me, just to pull an NSA and decide it'd be "neat" to collect the data just because they can.)

Second though... in Japan, there's the option to have your car display... well, ads... I think to make it sound useful they refer to it as sponsored personalized information on available nearby services. ***BUT***, if you elect to do this Toyota actually CHARGES LOWER MONTHLY PAYMENTS in return for this, you effectively are paid for giving up your information. They found that people there were not willing to give up information without compensation, and they have functional privacy laws so they'd be (probably) be sued into oblivion if they decided they would just do it and not tell anyone.

I don't want a "personalized motoring experience".

I just want to drive the damn car and not have to up with any BS like "targeted ads".... I'm against the same crap on my browser but then, there's ADBLOCK for that. I wonder if it would work on a car?

Special relationship

Nice to be in the EU but will the desperation to go with TTIP be too much of a carrot?

'You can do big trade with us as long as we get ALL your data'

At least BMW are being cautious, whether it's down to their own altruistic decison or EU laws - I dunno.

So how do I shut it off?

Just bought a new-to-me car whose manual tells me:

------ 8< ------

Your vehicle has computers that monitor and control certain aspects of your vehicle.

Besides storing data useful for troubleshooting, there is an event data recorder (EDR) that records data in a crash or a near car crash event.

[description of data collected]

[Manufacturer] will not disclose the data recorded in an EDR to a third party except when:

o Officially requested by the police or other authorities

o Used as a defense for Toyota in a law suit

o Ordered by a court

o [....]

------ >8 ------

So now it's off to find maintenance manuals, and hope the widget can be disabled without side effects....

And that is *news*?

Honestly, BMW is clearly desperate to get in the news.

I started asking these questions when I saw that the car I wanted to buy had an interface to show Google maps, and this was at least 2 years ago. I was pleasantly surprised by the answer (from upon high, these people take privacy very serious) - I am barred by confidentiality to name names or background, but the car manufacturer in question gateways everything Google gets, so Google is in their case only a data provider. It is not a spy on your movements (which, by the way, is my main worry about any self driving car Google is ever going to put on the road - I bet it will be replete with sensors, possibly even monitoring your reaction to the ads it will inevitably try to fill your idle time with).

Having said that - that still means the car manufacturer has that data. I know Mercedes has some "assistance" things on board that basically track you and (if I recall correctly) can even listen in, that is not the kind of stuff I would ever approve of, assuming I knew it was there, of course.