Yes, Your Car is Spying on You and Selling Your Data (but it’s Big Business doing it, so it’s OK)

by Scott Creighton

Remember when proposals like having “black boxes” in your car reporting on your every move was a bad thing? Remember when everyone raged about not wanting the “ebil gubmint” tracking their every mile and pedal push? Remember when that was an invasion of your privacy? Anybody? Remember?

“Everyone makes mistakes, and many people try to cover them up. But if you try to hide an error made behind the wheel of a car made by Tesla Motors, you are liable to be caught out. In fact, trying to hide what really happened in any kind of car accident could soon become just about impossible.

That’s the lesson of an incident over the weekend in which the owner of a Tesla Model X SUV crashed into a building and claimed it had suddenly accelerated on its own. But Tesla vehicles are constantly connected to their manufacturer via the Internet, and the company had this to say in a statement to the Verge:

“Data shows that the vehicle was traveling at 6 mph when the accelerator pedal was abruptly increased to 100 percent … Consistent with the driver’s actions, the vehicle applied torque and accelerated as instructed.”

“Ebil gubmint” was wrong to try to follow us around, spying on and recording every mile we drove, every turn we took, every pit stop, every midday liaison, every word we uttered in the privacy of our own vehicles. Wrooong! 

But gosh darn it, Big Business can do it and it’s just fine. Just fiiiine.

In this case we have Tesla Motors perhaps avoiding a costly lawsuit and all they had to do to achieve that all important brand protecting, bottom-line saving corporate goal is to report (or write?) a few little words from their secretive “black box” (it’s called proprietary software and it’s protected so no one steals Big Business’ trade secrets (kinda like Black Box voting, don’t cha know)) and presto, the lawsuit goes away.

Because… technology.

There’s no possible conflict of interest there, right? Nah. Big Business wouldn’t do that, would they?

“One big motivation for car companies is to get into the insurance business. Some insurance companies already offer discounts if you install a device in your car with sensors that monitor your driving habits, and GM has partnerships with several that tap into its OnStar system. But insurance companies could have much to gain by getting more detailed data as Tesla does, so they can see not only the car’s motion but every action of the driver.” MIT Technology Review

I heard a commercial yesterday boasting about some car’s 5 or 6 video cameras on-board and it’s constant Wifi broadcast.

Oh the idiot actors pretending to be real folks were so impressed with the possibility that their new car had it’s own Wifi broadcast and all those cameras. So impressed they were. It’s so hip. So now. So today.

One camera appeared to be in the back and one in the front recording where you’ve been and where you are going at all times (and of course the license plates of everyone around you). The other 4 or so I suppose were in the cabin of the vehicle, recording you and your passengers and broadcasting that data all day every day to whomever is watching at company headquarters.

Let’s to a little test you and I. Which of these do you find comforting and which do you find intrusive?

It’s a trick question, because they are actually the same picture.

“Carmakers will also find themselves frequently being asked to help law enforcement with investigations (local cops, Feds, TSA, Homeland Security… NSA????) .” MIT Technology Review

We live in the age of the internet of everything being combined with the ideology of the commodification of everything. Everything you do, everything you say, everything you write. Every move you make, every song you listen to. Every talk radio station you yell at. Every driver you flip off. Every female pedestrian who catches your eye. Everything has a value to someone, somewhere, sitting there in GM’s shinny new Customer Monitoring Command Center.

And if you think you are better off with that slimy bastard jerking off to a live feed of your daughter in the back seat cus he’s wearing a GM logo on his coveralls as opposed to a TSA logo, well that’s your prerogative I suppose.

Big Business is certainly not going to suggest otherwise to you.

But don’t think for a minute that Big Brother wont be in there watching right along with their brothers in arms in Big Business. They’re one and the same now and they’re everywhere, always. And you let it happen on your watch. That’s your legacy. And mine.

Yes, your car is spying on you. But it’s OK because it’s not the “ebil gubmint” doing it, it’s Big Business. And who doesn’t trust Big Business?

Say “thank you” Glenn Greenwald. Say “thank you” “Edward Snowden”. Say thank you for CISA and the USA Freedom Act which freed up Big Business to privatize the national security state and turn everything about you into a commodity for resale, research or re-branding purposes.

It’s a brave new world folks. And they’re just getting started.

So make sure you say only nice things about the system as it is while riding around in your shinny new broadcasting car, with your Progressive Insurance Snapshot tracking system plugged in,  with Facebook listening in via your cell phone sitting next to you, with that FitBit on your arm telling you what to do all day to make you more cost effective for your insurance company and that Bluetooth microphone on your ear like a douche bag.

Make sure you don’t ruffle any feathers or raise any red-flags with that guy jacking off at the GM command center. Make sure no one thinks you don’t have your mind right cus they’re watching and recording and categorizing and analyzing, all day, every day, every thing. Your highs, your lows, your mundane thoughts, your brilliant ideas, your petty disputes. The songs you sing along with, the fights with your spouse.It’s all broadcast, recorded, analyzed, categorized, commodified, and monetized.

It’s all there for them to take. To just pluck out of the air as your new status symbol rolls down the road broadcasting every personal aspect of your lives to the internet of everything. Because it all belongs to them. Now it does. It’s all theirs and there’s nothing you can do about it because you were afeared of “ebil gubmint” reading your emails and now you got that AND something a thousand times worse.

When your crappy new car leaps forward into traffic because of deregulation and your kid gets killed and GM shows their magic file from their magic box and you end up with nothing more than a much larger MANDATED insurance payment to make… to GM… on top of having to continue to pay for the wrecked car that killed your child and nobody will cover your story or even listen to it because they don’t wish to appear as not having their mind right, don’t say you weren’t warned. Because you were.

When some rich football player who is needed by his billionaire team owner next season is driving home at 5am after a night of partying and coke sniffing doing 70mph in a 35 zone and blows a red-light and hits you while you’re walking to the bus stop to go to work and your Fitbit lies and says you darted out in front of him for no apparent reason and GM’s black box says the wasted NFL player was only doing 25mph cus he also carries GM insurance and GM owns 16% of his team, don’t say you weren’t warned when you don’t even get your massive hospital bills paid while he scoots off with his new car, the one you probably have to pay for. Don’t say you weren’t warned because that’s how it’s going to work and you were.

And when you see your idea in a commercial from a company owned by some Progressive Insurance board member’s wife, you know, the one you were saving up to get that prototype made for, don’t get mad and toss out your Snapshot. They want more good ideas from you and tossing that thing out in a rage means you don’t have your mind right.

Is this infinitely more insidious than 12 guys at the NSA being able to file a court order to tap your phone lines or access your emails if they can show a judge something that looks kinda like evidence? I would say yes, but I don’t got my mind right.

Yeah, your car is spying on you but it’s OK because it’s Big Business doing it and not “ebil gubmint” so you got that going for you.

Now have a nice day and make sure to say only nice things about fascism and the system today. You never know who’s listening.

Well, actually, now you do.