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It’s Official: Cars Are the Worst Product Category We Have Ever Reviewed for Privacy
The Mozilla Foundation ^ | Sept 6, 2024 | Jen Caltrider, Misha Rykov and Zoë MacDonald

Posted on 09/27/2024 6:11:03 AM PDT by Salman

Ah, the wind in your hair, the open road ahead, and not a care in the world… except all the trackers, cameras, microphones, and sensors capturing your every move. Ugh. Modern cars are a privacy nightmare.

Car makers have been bragging about their cars being “computers on wheels" for years to promote their advanced features. However, the conversation about what driving a computer means for its occupants' privacy hasn’t really caught up. While we worried that our doorbells and watches that connect to the internet might be spying on us, car brands quietly entered the data business by turning their vehicles into powerful data-gobbling machines. Machines that, because of all those brag-worthy bells and whistles, have an unmatched power to watch, listen, and collect information about what you do and where you go in your car.

All 25 car brands we researched earned our *Privacy Not Included warning label -- making cars the official worst category of products for privacy that we have ever reviewed.

Why are cars we researched so bad at privacy? And how did they fall so far below our standards? Let us count the ways!

...

(Excerpt) Read more at foundation.mozilla.org ...


TOPICS:
KEYWORDS: automotive; data; privacy; spying
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Bolded in the article, not by me.
1 posted on 09/27/2024 6:11:03 AM PDT by Salman
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To: Salman

If I could, I’d happily take a late 80’s early 90’s F-150 4x4 with a five liter, manual windows, tow package, and AC.


2 posted on 09/27/2024 6:15:57 AM PDT by Antihero101607
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To: Antihero101607

In the meantime, if you have to buy new, but an inexpensive car, base trim.

Less to spy on you.


3 posted on 09/27/2024 6:18:56 AM PDT by mewzilla (Never give up; never surrender!)
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To: mewzilla

...buy an...


4 posted on 09/27/2024 6:20:02 AM PDT by mewzilla (Never give up; never surrender!)
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To: Salman

I actually have to stop in a rest area to reboot my F-150 [I think it has M$ software...] whilst driving on a long trip to keep the “CarPlay” navigation & internet radio totally functional.

It’s a PITA.


5 posted on 09/27/2024 6:22:52 AM PDT by Paladin2
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To: Salman

Actually, phones and computers are the #1 invaders of privacy. Then security cameras, license plate reading cameras, facial recognition.

The underlying problem is that everything is remembered and made available to the big guys for getting you in trouble.


6 posted on 09/27/2024 6:33:21 AM PDT by cymbeline
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To: Salman

They can have my decades-old F350DRW when they pry my cold, dead hands off the steering wheel.


7 posted on 09/27/2024 6:33:21 AM PDT by Nervous Tick ("First the Saturday people, then the Sunday people...": ISLAM is the problem!)
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To: Salman

In the 80’s Ford was reluctant to say the least to put Intel products in their cars to get emissions down and performance up.


8 posted on 09/27/2024 6:36:04 AM PDT by sasquatch (Do NOT forget Ashli Babbit! c/o piytar)
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To: Antihero101607

I have the F-350 diesel version of that. I agree


9 posted on 09/27/2024 6:37:44 AM PDT by cableguymn (They don't want peace they want skeletons )
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To: cymbeline

Agreed.
If you have your cell phone on while driving and are using any features, you are being tracked.
Connected cars have the ability to be deactivated remotely along with tracking.


10 posted on 09/27/2024 6:39:21 AM PDT by Zathras
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To: Salman
If we lived in a normal world, there would be state and federal legislation that puts an end to these egregious violations of privacy. But no one who is part of the CONTROL matrix that we live in wants to, or is able - to do it.

The collection of data in all aspects of our lives can’t be stopped. The game has been rigged for a long time. This has nothing to do with advertising. “Advertising” is a smokescreen, and at this point a pretty sad one.

The thousands of satellites all around us in the skies will eventually number in the tens of thousands, if they don’t already. Some provide an internet access. But the majority exist as components of the 24/7 surveillance umbrella - built to observe, monitor and track human interactions.

11 posted on 09/27/2024 6:52:11 AM PDT by yelostar (TRUMP/VANCE 2024)
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To: Salman

Parking with my High School sweetie was much simpler in the old days.


12 posted on 09/27/2024 6:53:04 AM PDT by Huskrrrr (Alinsky, you magnificent Bastard, I read your book!)
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To: Zathras

Do you mean using the phine function available in most cars....or...just having your cell phone with you and on?


13 posted on 09/27/2024 6:53:31 AM PDT by goodnesswins (DEI....Divide, Enslave, Indoctrinate.....OR ......Didn't Earn It)
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To: cymbeline
"Actually, phones and computers are the #1 invaders of privacy."

If you want to know just how much data is recorded by your phone, watch the trial of Alex Murdaugh (the lawyer convicted of murdering his wife and son in South Carolina). While Alex was on the stand, the prosecution showed all kinds of phone evidence. Your phone knows (and records) when the phone is locked, unlocked, what app(s) you use, continuous location data (to within ~3 feet)... And that is only a small portion of the data it records, collects, and retains. And pretty much everything is accessible to law enforcement.

If you have a smart phone, you have exactly zero privacy.

14 posted on 09/27/2024 7:29:16 AM PDT by Sicon ("All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others." - G. Orwell>)
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To: Salman

Also, just like Mozilla dweebs to whing on about something. Hey! Wanna do something worthwhile instead of constantly making Firefox worse and worse? How about publishing some hacks we can use to turn off these features?


15 posted on 09/27/2024 7:50:35 AM PDT by bobbo666
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To: Sicon

“If you have a smart phone, you have exactly zero privacy.”

In my case, maybe I’m safe because I lead a simple life.

I don’t post things on this site or any other internet site such as emails or texts that I think could come back to bite me.

I don’t identify myself on this site, but certainly big brother could find out.

I come to this site mainly to learn, not to preach.


16 posted on 09/27/2024 7:52:41 AM PDT by cymbeline
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To: Salman

Police are lazy. If a private company will collect and store information for them and then do the work to look it up and put it in a report so much the better. That is why we have communism. That is why we now have secret police down to the city level.


17 posted on 09/27/2024 8:19:42 AM PDT by jdt1138 (Where ever you go, there you are.)
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To: Antihero101607

I am never giving up my old truck but that won’t do much since there are ALPR all over the place now. Toll road, recorded. City street, recorded. Private neighborhood, recorded. Stored, cataloged for future use against you along with whatever WIFI signals that you were broadcasting as you passed the automated checkpoint. It is modern day communist ‘show me your papers’ but without the pesky human interaction.


18 posted on 09/27/2024 8:23:10 AM PDT by jdt1138 (Where ever you go, there you are.)
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To: cymbeline

Trust me on this one; We are all on a big list complete with individual files that are being compiled from every source possible. All ‘legal’ since private companies are doing the work.


19 posted on 09/27/2024 8:25:22 AM PDT by jdt1138 (Where ever you go, there you are.)
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To: jdt1138

“We are all on a big list complete with individual files ...”

Guess the “net” in internet is truer than ever: it’s like a fishnet that has caught us all.


20 posted on 09/27/2024 8:52:40 AM PDT by cymbeline
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