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posted by Fnord666 on Friday January 20 2017, @05:42PM   Printer-friendly
from the is-Howard-Stern-listening-in-on-you? dept.

A recent techdirt article says that

Law Enforcement Has Been Using OnStar, SiriusXM, To Eavesdrop, Track Car Locations For More Than 15 Year

Thomas Fox-Brewster of Forbes is taking a closer look at a decade-plus of in-car surveillance, courtesy of electronics and services manufacturers are installing in as many cars as possible.

Following the news that cops are trying to sweat down an Amazon Echo in hopes of hearing murder-related conversations, it's time to revisit the eavesdropping that's gone on for years prior to today's wealth of in-home recording devices.

One of the more recent examples can be found in a 2014 warrant that allowed New York police to trace a vehicle by demanding the satellite radio and telematics provider SiriusXM provide location information.

In this case, SiriusXM complied by turning on its "stolen vehicle recovery" mode, which allowed law enforcement to track the vehicle for ten days. SiriusXM told Forbes it only does this in response to search warrants and court orders. That may be the case for real-time tracking, but any location information captured and stored by SiriusXM can be had with nothing more than a subpoena, as this info is normally considered a third-party record.

It's not just satellite radio companies allowing cops to engage in surreptitious tracking. OnStar and other in-vehicle services have been used by law enforcement to eavesdrop on personal conversations between drivers and passengers.

In at least two cases, individuals unwittingly had their conversations listened in on by law enforcement. In 2001, OnStar competitor ATX Technologies (which later became part of Agero) was ordered to provide "roving interceptions" of a Mercedes Benz S430V. It initially complied with the order in November of that year to spy on audible communications for 30 days, but when the FBI asked for an extension in December, ATX declined, claiming it was overly burdensome.

The 2001 case didn't end well for law enforcement. It wasn't that the court had an issue with the eavesdropping, but rather that the act of listening in limited the functionality of the in-car tech, which the court found to be overly-burdensome.

[...] Law enforcement may find encryption to be slowing things down in terms of accessing cell phone contents, but everything else -- from in-car electronics to the Internet of Things -- is playing right into their hands.

-- submitted from IRC


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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by butthurt on Friday January 20 2017, @06:44PM

    by butthurt (6141) on Friday January 20 2017, @06:44PM (#456642) Journal

    Currently, SiriusXM is like this (Wikipedia link added by me):

    Vehicle-based emergency calls: automatic
    crash notification (ACN), advanced AACN,
    In-vehicle MayDay (ecall) button, stolen
    vehicle recovery.

    24x7 call centers in Irving, Texas; Provo,
    Utah

    Two agents on emergency calls
    One interfacing driver
    One interfacing PSAP [wikipedia.org]

    -- https://web.archive.org/web/20161222191700/http://calnena.org/Meetings/2016/SiriusXMPPT.pdf [archive.org]

    According to the same presentation, they are considering for the "next generation":

    Use of onboard cameras
    [...]
    Number of passengers/presence of child
    [...]
    Vehicle-to-Vehicle, V2I Communications
    Cordon off incident areas
    Notify of approaching responder vehicle
    [...]

    •Heart Rate Monitoring, can notify 911 if a
    driver’s heart rate changes rapidly
    •Driver alertness monitor with rest
    recommendation messages
    •Alcohol detection

    Starting Score:    1  point
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    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by dyingtolive on Saturday January 21 2017, @02:13AM

    by dyingtolive (952) on Saturday January 21 2017, @02:13AM (#456817)

    I note opt-out is mysteriously absent from that list of upcoming features.

    --
    Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!