Privacy

32107 readers

397 users here now

A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.

Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.

In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.

Some Rules

Posting a link to a website containing tracking isn't great, if contents of the website are behind a paywall maybe copy them into the post
Don't promote proprietary software
Try to keep things on topic
If you have a question, please try searching for previous discussions, maybe it has already been answered
Reposts are fine, but should have at least a couple of weeks in between so that the post can reach a new audience
Be nice :)

Related communities

Chat rooms

[Matrix/Element]Dead
Discord

much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

501

Modern cars are surveillance devices on wheels with major privacy risks – new report (theconversation.com)

submitted 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

92 comments fedilink hide all child comments

New research reveals serious privacy flaws in the data practices of new internet connected cars in Australia. It’s yet another reason why we need urgent reform of privacy laws.

Modern cars are increasingly equipped with internet-enabled features. Your “connected car” might automatically detect an accident and call emergency services, or send a notification if a child is left in the back seat.

But connected cars are also sophisticated surveillance devices. The data they collect can create a highly revealing picture of each driver. If this data is misused, it can result in privacy and security threats.

A report published today analysed the privacy terms from 15 of the most popular new car brands that sell connected cars in Australia.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Is there any open source/privacy focused connected car software?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago

There are some open source cars, but they're very basic

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

The problem isn’t e.g. CarPlay, it’s the car itself, which is usually entirely custom.

For example with Infiniti they have their own Android based OS and the only way to get a new head unit in the car is to have a full emulator. Otherwise you lose access to anything that the head unit controls.

I don’t know if open source custom car roms will be a thing until we have an LLM that’s smart enough to automate porting the rom to different models of car.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Yeah OK, so stick with dumb cars for now. Or take public transport and ride your bike because cars just suck in general!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago

Definitely. If you’ve got an old car keep it alive as long as you can