Your car is monitoring you.

[otherclive]

In the US police decided to retrospectively check out a cars data cache in order to track down a murderer. They found he had used voice control to activate the radio of the victims car and each activation was logged for location and time. His voice records were confirmed via audio retrieval. Looking at a website Privacy4 cars it seems that not only are driver actions such as braking, steering and throttle being monitored but number of passengers and weight can be recorded to optimise airbag activation. So you can’t say someone else was driving unless they weigh the same as you. Many cars also record text messages, location history, phone contacts, recent calls, emails and garage door codes etc. Not too surprising really, so should we be as meticulous in wiping personal data when we sell the car as when we get rid of a PC?

 

[Guzzilazz]

JLR cars have had this for several years, the car reports back minor faults and failures... along with many other pieces of data... I used to work for the company that developed the AWS cloud stuff

 

[otherclive]

JLR cars have had this for several years, the car reports back minor faults and failures... along with many other pieces of data... I used to work for the company that developed the AWS cloud stuff

Must be a busy data network then. 😀

I was aware that certain parameters were stored especially driving related ones as police traffic accident investigators would examine the data.
Small world my BIL worked at Jaguar his whole working career. Hecwas on the XK220 development team then moved to the XK8. Unfortunately he didn’t see the XK8s introduction into service. But owning the Big Cat is still a dream for me.

 

[JezzerB]

My Kawasaki Z900rs handbook states that the ecu records how the bike it being ridden and warns this may be used by the authorities in the even t of an accident-not sure what it records-probably speed-it has 3 level traction control but not much else fancy!

 

[Buckman]

Here in the UK recently a crime was solved using data from the vehicle. I think it was something to do with a person being shot by a crossbow? See https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-51224606

 

[Guzzilazz]

Must be a busy data network then. 😀

I was aware that certain parameters were stored especially driving related ones as police traffic accident investigators would examine the data.
Small world my BIL worked at Jaguar his whole working career. Hecwas on the XK220 development team then moved to the XK8. Unfortunately he didn’t see the XK8s introduction into service. But owning the Big Cat is still a dream for me.

Not really, the data is quite small for each upload package, it's small kilobytes rather than meg or gig

 

[otherclive]

Not really, the data is quite small for each upload package, it's small kilobytes rather than meg or gig

But it’s JLR so lots of little packages then making it busy🤭

 

[Raywood]

If you have done nothing wrong you do not need to worry about the information. While the information can show where you have been and other information like weights carried, what good is it to anyone as I do not send texts or make phone calls and e mails from the car.

 

[otherclive]

If you have done nothing wrong you do not need to worry about the information. While the information can show where you have been and other information like weights carried, what good is it to anyone as I do not send texts or make phone calls and e mails from the car.

Well it’s not quite like that. Even people who don’t text or phone whilst driving may still use the cars infotainment system into which they will likely have transferred their contacts. With my satnav I never use my correct home location rather insert one a couple of miles away. Then so thieves couldn’t determine my real home by looking at journey details I delete my trips on completion. Alternatively I tend to use the standalone Garmin.
I’d suggest very few if any delete personal data and reset that system when they sell the car. Would you let your PC go with all of your contacts still installed on the HDD.

 

[Buckman]

If you have done nothing wrong you do not need to worry about the information. While the information can show where you have been and other information like weights carried, what good is it to anyone as I do not send texts or make phone calls and e mails from the car.

I have used the phone connection in the car on a couple of occasions mainly receiving calls. If it is not a quick "hello and goodbye" chat, I ask them to phone back at a later stage when I am not driving.

 

[Raywood]

Yes you should not be using the phone and driving. From experience some horrendous accidents have resulted from this even where hands free has been used. Quite simply if you are on the phone your attention is divided and things can happen in front of you at that time. The delay or failure to react can be fatal as I can confirm.
I suppose calls may be by passengers though, which should not be a problem. At the end of the day the car has only a list of numbers called rather than what was said or who the other people were.