> your car’s movements and exact location are being collected and shared anonymously with a data broker
> said that the company had gotten the precise location of about 10 million G.M. cars up to every one to three seconds, but that the data did not include identifying details about the driver.
The word "Anonymously" means exactly nothing here. If one's exact location and movements are collected, wouldn't that include a lot of time and datapoints where the car is spending time at work and home locations?
Seems incredibly trivial at that point to deanonymize usage.
A long time ago, I read an article about a journalist that did just that: bought a pack of “anonymized” location data set, then promptly tracked and interviewed one of the people in said data set.
It kills me that I can’t remember where the article was exactly, because it’s one of mu favorite examples of why fighting indiscriminate tracking is important. I remember it being from a Scandinavian newspaper, maybe Dannish?
One of the worst (best?) examples I remember was the Web of Trust extension in 2016. The company claimed it was selling anonymized user data but it was actually leaking information through recorded URLs about all sorts of private things like account names, addresses, ongoing legal investigations, etc
It may be the same article, I'm not sure, but I remember reading something similar where researchers also showed that the more anonymized the data, the less useful (and thus valuable) it becomes. Maybe there's a balance to be found but, ultimately, it seems like "anonymized" is a pipe dream.
One of the oldest (AFAIK) occurrences of this was AOL releasing a data set of "anonymized" search queries in 2006 and it took a about a day for the first person to be deanonymized.
It is. There's no way this is 'private' vs. a kinda motivated amateur who can be bothered downloading a copy of the phone book, let alone vs. any parties who actually stand to benefit materially from knowing this stuff.
I've often thought that cynically, the real motivation for having non-technical people in these public-facing roles (sales, marketing, media etc.) is so that they can honestly, earnestly, present their understanding of the product. An understanding, that is, which lacks the nuance to properly convey the implications of pretty much any aspect of the situation.
Process of elimination, contrasting and comparing, and trivial methodologies can be used when you have enough data to compare, and any sort of real world unmasked data to anchor to.
AI and data processing algorithms can do more advanced things, like stylometric comparisons, biometrics, and doing the grunt work of filtering out data associated with a particular individual. You're known and modeled with higher resolution and greater detail than any intimate partner or therapist.
No problem here! This will certainly not end poorly. There's absolutely nothing that could go wrong.
Yes. This problem is why I cringe a bit any time I see someone claiming that people should feel safer because their data is being "anonymized".
It is possible to do data collection in a relatively anonymous way (it's never possible to do it in an entirely anonymous way), but there's no way for a person outside the company to know if it's actually being done that way, and there still has to be an entity somewhere that processes the non-anonymous form of the data.
With AI knocking at the door corporations are in a gold rush for data before humanity becomes privy to what it means.
AI is legalized intellectual theft and breaks so many laws (privacy, copyright) yet it's a magic box that randomizes who is stolen from so people accept it.
All the business-speak about data privacy is an attempt to hold the general public at bay.
The whole day broker industry needs to be made illegal. We should make it extremely tedious for companies to share data. Instead of giving broad permission on page 3876 of the TOS it should be required to get customer approval for every share and we should be able to know with whom our data is shared. “Anonymization” doesn’t work either. It’s way too easy to deanonymize most data.
Then we can all analyze what they are collecting and can improve the visibility this issue gets. We really need better privacy laws in the US but laws can't move as fast as the tech sector does.
I've been thinking something similar, howuch would it cost for individuals to have what used to be high tech always on spy gadgetry. Shouldn't be prohibitively expensive, but what would be the consequences of everyone having instant dossiers on everyone else?
I appreciate where you’re coming from, but making all of this data public would immediately and directly endanger many people, e.g. women trying to stay hidden from abusive ex-partners.
Here's what I would like to see: A law that says that if any company sells any data associated with me then they must share 50% of the sale of that data with me in cash.
Maybe it's overly simplistic and definitely unrealistic but, there it is.
I would be very opposed to that because it would effectively cement the idea that collecting and selling this data is acceptable and make fighting it even more difficult.
I don't want to be paid for the collection and use of my personal data, I want for the collection and use to not happen without my informed consent.
I don't disagree and I would be fine with the law requiring companies to gain your explicit consent to the collection of data. If I give consent then they must pay me 50% of the gross price of the data. Processing fees and overhead comes out of their share, not mine. And it must be in cash only. No in-kind trades. I want them to have to really want it badly if they want to profit on my information.
how about we just outlaw this tracking information period. Companies can advertise to you based on searches and browser location only? and required by law to not track individuals with $1 billion dollar fines and 5 years imprisonment if caught doing otherwise?
Not just automakers. Several dealership install GPS trackers under dashboard to track inventory, and can not be bothered to remove it after sale. If your battery has parasitic current drain, and discharges when car sits idle for weeks, this is the most likely cause.
You should not have any expectations of privacy today.
I know every dealer is different but I've worked at several and never heard of gps trackers for inventory purposes. Dealers don't usually kept track of where the cars are very well.
On the flip side smaller questionable used car dealers have definitely installed trackers to help with repoing a car in the event the buyer stops paying, or even worse lock down the car so it won't start.
Pennies, you say? That seems like a useful data asset at a deanonymized level, maybe rolled up to census tract or block groups, and with POI split out so you can investigate all sorts of things.
I don't really care where Ms. Wilkins next door takes her cats during the day, but if I were looking to buy a small business I might like to know which grooming service is drawing people from further away.
The problem is location data is highly identifying (provides people’s address and work location amount others).
Maybe if it was aggregated and restricted to average number of cars at X public locations at any given time. But it sounds like the individual data is being sold here.
It was sold to the insurance industry so they could more accurately gauge the risk they face. It came to light because some particularly dangerous drivers found their insurance premiums rise to $500+/month.
The counter-example is the world where safe drivers much more heavily subsidize extremely bad drivers. If I have no accidents on my record in 10 years, and have every observable behavior that indicates low risk, why should I pay substantial amounts of money every year because the government does not want insurers to have the data to tell I'm not a high-risk driver?
Readit News
> said that the company had gotten the precise location of about 10 million G.M. cars up to every one to three seconds, but that the data did not include identifying details about the driver.
The word "Anonymously" means exactly nothing here. If one's exact location and movements are collected, wouldn't that include a lot of time and datapoints where the car is spending time at work and home locations?
Seems incredibly trivial at that point to deanonymize usage.
It kills me that I can’t remember where the article was exactly, because it’s one of mu favorite examples of why fighting indiscriminate tracking is important. I remember it being from a Scandinavian newspaper, maybe Dannish?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WOT_Services#Sale_of_user-rela...
https://nrkbeta.no/2020/12/03/my-phone-was-spying-on-me-so-i...
The original in Norwegian https://www.nrk.no/norge/xl/avslort-av-mobilen-1.14911685 has some nice visualizations.
https://www.technologyreview.com/2019/07/23/134090/youre-ver...
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/12/19/opinion/locat...
https://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/09/technology/09aol.html
https://techcrunch.com/2006/08/09/first-person-identified-fr...
I've often thought that cynically, the real motivation for having non-technical people in these public-facing roles (sales, marketing, media etc.) is so that they can honestly, earnestly, present their understanding of the product. An understanding, that is, which lacks the nuance to properly convey the implications of pretty much any aspect of the situation.
Deleted Comment
AI and data processing algorithms can do more advanced things, like stylometric comparisons, biometrics, and doing the grunt work of filtering out data associated with a particular individual. You're known and modeled with higher resolution and greater detail than any intimate partner or therapist.
No problem here! This will certainly not end poorly. There's absolutely nothing that could go wrong.
It is possible to do data collection in a relatively anonymous way (it's never possible to do it in an entirely anonymous way), but there's no way for a person outside the company to know if it's actually being done that way, and there still has to be an entity somewhere that processes the non-anonymous form of the data.
AI is legalized intellectual theft and breaks so many laws (privacy, copyright) yet it's a magic box that randomizes who is stolen from so people accept it.
All the business-speak about data privacy is an attempt to hold the general public at bay.
Then we can all analyze what they are collecting and can improve the visibility this issue gets. We really need better privacy laws in the US but laws can't move as fast as the tech sector does.
What company do I need to goto to buy this data?
Its the continuation of https://techcrunch.com/2023/08/01/california-privacy-agency-...
https://gbhackers.com/toyota-data-breach/
"The in-vehicle GPS navigation terminal ID number / The chassis number / Vehicle location information with time data."
Toyota = Lexus = a lot of politicians and their families.
fucking around and finding out is much less commendable when you fuck around with other people's lives and let them find out.
It's about the balance between those things.
It's totally possible that this action could result in someone uncovering a serial killer or organized crime ring.
This could save lives.
Why are you opposed to an action that could save lives and bring about desperately needed changes in privacy laws?
We see this all the time when someoe hurts another person to stop them from hurting another person. It's codified in the law.
Whether or not you're doing a bad thing isn't determined just by the nature of your action but also by your intention.
Maybe it's overly simplistic and definitely unrealistic but, there it is.
I don't want to be paid for the collection and use of my personal data, I want for the collection and use to not happen without my informed consent.
The money maker here is the scale of which it happens at.
You should not have any expectations of privacy today.
On the flip side smaller questionable used car dealers have definitely installed trackers to help with repoing a car in the event the buyer stops paying, or even worse lock down the car so it won't start.
That sounds like they gave me a free GPS unit that I could repurpose.
It's why car interiors are so cheap, when alternatives aren't expensive.
Looking at their revenues, this is just silly money. Honda pulled in $100B in revenue in 2022; Hyundai, $85B.
That they would even bother with this program given the potential backlash is bizarre.
I don't really care where Ms. Wilkins next door takes her cats during the day, but if I were looking to buy a small business I might like to know which grooming service is drawing people from further away.
Maybe if it was aggregated and restricted to average number of cars at X public locations at any given time. But it sounds like the individual data is being sold here.
The counter-example is the world where safe drivers much more heavily subsidize extremely bad drivers. If I have no accidents on my record in 10 years, and have every observable behavior that indicates low risk, why should I pay substantial amounts of money every year because the government does not want insurers to have the data to tell I'm not a high-risk driver?