2y ago

Court rules automakers can record and intercept owner text messages

therecord.media

20 comments

wow, ok. fuck privacy when it comes to cash, right?
- Sounds like the states privacy laws might be dogshit...
  recording of mobile phone activity did not meet the Washington Privacy Act’s standard that a plaintiff must prove that “his or her business, his or her person, or his or her reputation” has been threatened.
  
  Its damn hard to prove injury without discovery...
- Judges are supposed to rule based on what the law says, not what they think is a good idea. Most likely the law is just inadequate.
Privacy is becoming a luxury
Why are cars even getting text messages in the first place?
- The idea is the car reads your texts to you via TTS so it's less tempting to look at your phone while driving.
  
  Oh wow that’s fucked that cars can monitor that now
  
  I just turn the phone on silent. In fact silent is the default mode. To many spammers. There is nothing important enough in my life that requires immediate attention. Might change if I find a woman and get kids but not likely.
  
  I wonder if this interacts with Android Auto. AA essentially uses your car's speakers and screen as peripherals for your phone, so hopefully it's sandboxed out of the car's systems (except then it's Google reading your messages).
I'll bet this is not as cut and dry as the headline makes it sound.
...just don't link it?
It sucks but the easiest thing to do is to never enable your phone to connect to any of the car USB ports and/or their Bluetooth data service. Also find out were your car connects to voice speaker and remove the fuse from it or if you want to just cut the cable off completely.

20 comments