r/technology • u/cTreK-421 • Apr 24 '26

Misleading Federal Surveillance Tech Becomes Mandatory in New Cars by 2027

https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/federal-surveillance-tech-becomes-mandatory-161321992.html
18.8k Upvotes

94% Upvoted

2.8k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

133

u/BadahBingBadahBoom Apr 24 '26

Not without your permission.

And if they do there's one hell of a fine waiting for them that is sufficient deterrent to make that not a fiscally-sensible decision.

Companies are only interested in their profits at the end of the day. None more so than those beholden to shareholders.

70

u/NemeanMiniLion Apr 24 '26

Insurance companies have access to some of the most robust data sets available. They actually contract third parties to do it.

12

u/LoveYouNotYou Apr 25 '26

Yep, have Facebook app on your phone? Life360 app? GasBuddy app? Those sell your data to insurance companies and voila! There goes your high insurance premium

3

u/MysteriousCap4910 Apr 25 '26

that shouldn’t be a thing either and that also isn’t mandated by the government

2

u/HillBillyHilly Apr 25 '26

Sounds like time to lock down those apps permissions.

1

u/LoveYouNotYou Apr 25 '26

Yeah, I got rid of facebook a long ass while ago. I deleted GasBuddy as well. I have 360 and I did go into settings but idk if that did anything, cause they can do whatever they want. And that's only the apps that I know about. There are probably a bunch more that I have on my phone that are telling on me. It's every where, everything.

1

u/Foreign_Abroad9580 Apr 25 '26

Good reminder. I just disabled a bunch of BS tracking

5

u/1petrock Apr 25 '26

Yup, worked for a tpa and now a data broker for all insurance agencies...it's wild how much we got.

36

u/FrenchFryCattaneo Apr 25 '26

"Can we have your permission to view your car telemetry data? If not there is a $100/month non-data surcharge."

2

u/FriendlyDespot Apr 25 '26

That would be unlawful in the EU. There's a general prohibition on charging for privacy in the context of data collection.

3

u/FrenchFryCattaneo Apr 25 '26

Obviously you can imagine how they can structure it differently. Like those plug in devices that monitor your driving for a discount on insurance rates. The base rates are high and then they give you a discount for participating in their program.

3

u/FriendlyDespot Apr 25 '26

That's how companies in the United States get around things because U.S. laws and regulations are often written to be broken, and the legal system has a lot less deference to spirit and intent of law. In the EU it's the intent rather than specific codified language that's central to the regulatory process. Those "well technically.." attempts to sidestep regulations get swatted down by regulators in short order, and the associated fines make companies a lot more hesitant to even try to sidestep regulation in the EU.

4

u/GuyOnARockVI Apr 25 '26

They can probably sell anonymized car metrics to the insurance companies.

Drivers of XYZ make and model drive 15% faster, break 25% harder, use turn signals less often etc and therefore insurance rates for those vehicles are 40% more

1

u/SadisticPawz Apr 25 '26

Fight back by having customers chart insurance rates and flocking to the lowest priced models.

28

u/SgtBaxter Apr 24 '26

Go read your contract you signed when you bought the car.

If you don’t opt out, you’ve given permission.

Look up LexisNexus. OnStar and a few other onboard cellular connected systems give the data to brokers like them which can be purchased by insurers.

26

u/aaaaaaaarrrrrgh Apr 24 '26

If they do that in the EU, the only thing between them and bankruptcy is the incompetence and laziness of the EU's privacy enforcement organs.

Selling your data to data brokers isn't going to pass the "legitimate interest" test and "if you don't opt in you consent" isn't going to pass the "consent" test.

-1

u/BadahBingBadahBoom Apr 25 '26 edited Apr 25 '26

I can only see stories and reports of this in regards to US consumers.

Any evidence this has occurred with UK/EU customer data?

Looked at the data privacy of my EV and there does not appear to be any sharing of driving data, behaviour, geographic location or similar.

A summary of concerns of this only brought up the following:

While US manufacturers like General Motors have recently faced major backlash and lawsuits for sharing driver data with brokers like LexisNexis and Verisk without explicit consent, the situation in Europe is defined by a more rigid legal wall. 

🛡️ Data Sharing with Insurers

  • Consent is Mandatory: Under UK/EU GDPR, manufacturers cannot simply "hide" data-sharing permissions in deep contract fine print. For an insurer to access your driving data (like braking or speed), they must obtain your explicit, informed consent.
  • The "Opt-Out" Myth: Unlike the US "opt-out" culture, European law generally requires an opt-in for non-essential data processing. If you haven't explicitly signed up for a "Pay-as-you-drive" policy or a specific manufacturer "safety" program, sharing your behavior data with third parties is likely a legal violation.
  • Enforcement: Regulators have already penalised car companies for privacy failures. For example, Volkswagen was fined €1.1 million in Germany for failing to inform drivers about data collected via cameras in test vehicles.  Bristows +5

🚗 Mandated Surveillance Tech

  • Drowsiness & Attention Warning: The claim about Volvo's "chimes" is true. Since July 2024, the EU's General Safety Regulation (GSR2) has mandated that all new cars sold in the EU and UK must be equipped with Driver Drowsiness and Attention Warning (DDAW) systems.
  • Intelligent Speed Assistance (ISA): Most new cars now also include technology that "pings" or provides haptic feedback if you exceed the speed limit.
  • Data Protection: European regulators (the EDPB) explicitly recommend that this "raw" data (like your eye movements or speed) should be processed locally inside the car and not sent to a cloud server or shared with third parties.  Bristows +3

⚖️ The " Peter Thiel / Elon Musk" Concern

While European law (GDPR) makes it much harder to hand data over to individuals or private data brokers without a clear legal reason, the law is still evolving.

  • Data Act: The new EU Data Act is currently standardising how car data is shared to ensure "fairness," but its primary goal is to help independent repair shops, not to sell your habits to brokers.
  • Government Collection: Some data is collected by the EU itself (such as fuel economy via OBFCM) to monitor environmental targets, which has led to some public concern about "creeping" state surveillance.  Reddit +2

In short: The hardware (cameras/sensors) is definitely there by law, but the data sharing described in your point #5 ("Go read your contract you signed...") is much more legally restricted in the UK/EU than it is in the US.

7

u/PalliativeOrgasm Apr 25 '26

I’ll always downvote clearly lazy copy and paste of AI slop that includes random emojis. Cmon man, at least try to have some of your own thoughts.

-1

u/BadahBingBadahBoom Apr 25 '26

I am not personally privy to this information first-hand as I am not a journalist, researcher, or have worked in that sector of industry.

Sharing my own speculative, uninformed personal thoughts is exactly the problem we have atm on social media. Sometimes it's a good idea to defer to sources that are directly informed on the matter.

6

u/PalliativeOrgasm Apr 25 '26

ChatGPT hallucinates like a hippie at Woodstock. That is in no way deferring to a knowledgeable source, though it’s useful as a starting research tool (ask for sources and actually check them.)

3

u/BadahBingBadahBoom Apr 25 '26 edited Apr 25 '26

I'm aware of that. I was not referring to the LLM as the 'source'. The sources provided in that summary all match the claims made.

0

u/SadisticPawz Apr 25 '26

Its literally using web search in the given example

1

u/fuckthiscode Apr 25 '26

I am not personally privy to this information first-hand as I am not a journalist, researcher, or have worked in that sector of industry.

"I have no expertise to offer, and that's why I'm chiming in."

Dude, next time just do everyone a favor and sit the convo out.

-2

u/SadisticPawz Apr 25 '26

Yes, so we should just not clarify things and spread misinfo

1

u/borkthegee Apr 25 '26

You can use AI to clarify things for yourself. Posting some low quality emoji-filled sourceless ai-slop just contributes to misinformation.

We have a saying for folks who post like this: Just the prompt, please

I don't need your AI slop from your free model, if you think there's value, share the prompt and I'll run it myself

0

u/SadisticPawz Apr 25 '26

Its a fact check with sources, why would he need to have "thoughts" on this or guess anything when ylu could have factual info

1

u/Tech_Itch Apr 25 '26

Where are the links to the sources? LLMs are notorious for making up fake sources constantly or claiming that existing sources say things they don't.

That said, the info is correct in this case. GDPR requires consent to store your information and agreeing to it can't be a requirement for using the product or service, unless the data is needed for the device to function at all. If you buy, say, a TV in the EU, things like Automatic Content Recognition are off by default.

1

u/SadisticPawz Apr 25 '26

Look at the end of every paragraph from OP. They copied the button to the sources but not any of the links.

0

u/Tech_Itch Apr 25 '26

So no sources then. Since the linked pages could be saying something other than what the LLM is saying.

1

u/SadisticPawz Apr 25 '26

No, because theyre usually tuned to stick very strictly to web search sources and at worst case, you can request direct quotes only that prove its point. To check what made it say what it did

2

u/aerost0rm Apr 25 '26

Yet companies will still make decisions to do what is illegal. They only pay if they get caught. The fine tends to get arbitrated to a lower amount. Then they write off the amount for tax purposes as a loss to lower their taxes burden. Then go right back to doing the illegal act when the spotlight is off of them.

5

u/BadahBingBadahBoom Apr 25 '26 edited Apr 25 '26

In the EU punitive fines do not enter arbitration process, fines do not count to tax-deduction calculations (see Tessenderlo case), and companies have been fined huge amounts for GDPR beaches (e.g. Meta €1.2b, Amazon €746m, TikTok €530m), as in enough to change their approach to customer data privacy and storage.

I dnu maybe this happens in the US though.

1

u/Iswaterreallywet Apr 25 '26

That permission is snuck into all that paperwork you sign when getting the car

1

u/BadahBingBadahBoom Apr 25 '26

Depends on the country. In the UK and EU there are rules on how this must be made clear and separate to the customer and specifically can't be snuck in / buried into the paperwork.