Comment by diggan
1 day ago
> What can be done about this as a consumer looking to buy a new car?
For a consumer in the US, I have no idea, but I'm guessing your question is about that since the story is US-specific?
Probably off-topic, but buying a car in 2019 in Spain, they asked me if I'm OK with data-collection during the purchase, up until car delivery, and handed me a contract to sign for "treatment of personal data". I said no, we moved on.
After buying the car (2018 Audi A3), they threw in some remote-monitoring sensor "for free" that could let me/them see metrics about the car, for "maintenance" and whatever they claimed, that they offered to install. I again said "no", but kept the device itself to pick apart at some later time.
But overall, they seem required to ask (here, EU) but no one batted an eye when I said no. The car has a SIM-card reader, but never used it, I'm guessing if I install a SIM-card the car would ask me if data collection is OK, because we'll always have the choice at least.
Electric cars seems like a no-no for now (everywhere possibly), since all of them came with a "always on connection" regardless of what I want, at least last time I checked.
For a few years now, every new car sold in the EU needs a cellular connection for e-call (when airbags are deployed, the car calls 112 itself) functionality. I don't know if it's legal or common to reuse that radio for collecting other data. I would hope not.
> For a few years now, every new car sold in the EU needs a cellular connection for e-call
Damn, that sucks. Hope my current car lasts a long time then... It even has buttons and everything.
> I don't know if it's legal or common to reuse that radio for collecting other data. I would hope not
My guess would be that when you first get it/boot it, you'll at least get a choice between accepting it or not, that would be the baseline.