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posted by Fnord666 on Wednesday January 17 2018, @01:39PM   Printer-friendly
from the new-1984-models dept.

Now that automobile manufacturers are almost more about software than hardware, your car company may know more about you than your spouse based on all the sensors in your car. The incentive to collect driver and passenger data is great. Every piece of data is used to increase revenue, especially if sold onward to third-parties.

Dunn may consider his everyday driving habits mundane, but auto and privacy experts suspect that big automakers like Honda see them as anything but. By monitoring his everyday movements, an automaker can vacuum up a massive amount of personal information about someone like Dunn, everything from how fast he drives and how hard he brakes to how much fuel his car uses and the entertainment he prefers. The company can determine where he shops, the weather on his street, how often he wears his seat belt, what he was doing moments before a wreck — even where he likes to eat and how much he weighs.

Though drivers may not realize it, tens of millions of American cars are being monitored like Dunn's, experts say, and the number increases with nearly every new vehicle that is leased or sold.

The result is that carmakers have turned on a powerful spigot of precious personal data, often without owners' knowledge, transforming the automobile from a machine that helps us travel to a sophisticated computer on wheels that offers even more access to our personal habits and behaviors than smartphones do.


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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by canopic jug on Wednesday January 17 2018, @04:17PM (1 child)

    by canopic jug (3949) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday January 17 2018, @04:17PM (#623637) Journal

    Well, it is alleged that the average commute is about 30 minutes [wtop.com], one direction. So that's 1 hour total round trip. No details are given there about whether parking time is included and the geographical distribution of the drivers. Obviously there are going to be more drivers in congested areas, so it may actually be much higher [cheatsheet.com].

    However, that is just the commute. On top of that there are errands, free-time activities, and shuttling the kids around from place to place. So it is quite probable that people in the US waste between 2 and 3 hours per day inside their cars. Those in an urban area might be spending up to 6 hours per day in the car. If it is assumed 8 hours for sleep, that leaves 16 which minus 6 for driving and 9 for work leaves just one hour for hygiene and social interaction, including with the spouse.

    It is unhealthy for the individual and society, on both the physical and mental levels.

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  • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday January 17 2018, @05:20PM

    by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday January 17 2018, @05:20PM (#623663) Journal

    Think of the productive time that can be reclaimed once self driving cars rule the rhodes.

    the average commute is about 30 minutes, one direction. So that's 1 hour total round trip.

    Frightening!

    Compared to my grueling 10 minute commute with 5 traffic lights.

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