Topic: Carmakers keep data on drivers' locations (Read 1045 times)

Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson on Wednesday ordered the cancellation of a plan by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency to develop a national license-plate tracking system after privacy advocates raised concern about the initiative.

The order came just days after ICE solicited proposals from companies to compile a database of license-plate information from commercial and law enforcement tag readers. Officials said the database was intended to help apprehend fugitive illegal immigrants, but the plan raised concerns that the movements of ordinary citizens under no criminal suspicion could be scrutinized.

The data would have been drawn from readers that scan the tags of every vehicle crossing their paths, and would have been accessed only for “ongoing criminal investigations or to locate wanted individuals,” officials told The Washington Post this week.

“The solicitation, which was posted without the awareness of ICE leadership, has been cancelled,” ICE spokeswoman Gillian Christensen said in a statement. “While we continue to support a range of technologies to help meet our law enforcement mission, this solicitation will be reviewed to ensure the path forward appropriately meets our operational needs.”

Lawmakers and privacy advocates reacted with approval.

The fact that the solicitation was posted without knowledge of ICE leadership “highlights a serious management problem within this DHS component that currently does not have a director nominated by the president,” Rep. Bennie G. Thompson (Miss.), the ranking Democrat on the House Homeland Security Committee, said in a statement. He added that he hopes officials will consult with the department’s privacy and civil liberties officers in the future.

Harley Geiger, senior counsel at the nonprofit Center for Democracy & Technology, welcomed the decision to cancel plans for the database. It was to be designed to allow agents to snap a photo of a license plate, upload it to a smartphone and compare it against a “hot list” of plates in the database, among other features. But, Geiger noted, “they didn’t say, ‘Hey, contractor, you must also be capable of providing privacy protections.’ ”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/dhs-cancels-national-license-plate-tracking-plan/2014/02/19/a4c3ef2e-99b4-11e3-b931-0204122c514b_story.html

Build your own car with 3d printed parts FTW.

The Department of Homeland Security is set to activate a national license plate tracking system that will be shared with law enforcement, allowing DHS officers to take photos of any license plate using their smartphone and upload it to a database which will include a “hot list” of “target vehicles”.

The details are included in a PDF attachment uploaded yesterday to the Federal Business Opportunities website under a solicitation entitled “National License Plate Recognition Database.”

The system will “track vehicle license plate numbers that pass through cameras or are voluntarily entered into the system from a variety of sources (access control systems, asset recovery specialists, etc.) and uploaded to share with law enforcement” in order to help locate “criminal aliens and absconders.”

In other countries that have activated license plate tracking networks, such as the United Kingdom, political activists have been targeted by having their vehicles added to a “hotlist” after attending protests. One example led to a man being questioned under anti-terror laws after he traveled to take part in an anti-war demonstration.

http://www.dcclothesline.com/2014/02/13/homeland-security-activate-national-license-plate-recognition-database/

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Are we there yet? To BigBrotherville?

...But 10-20 years from now, an old car will be one that's on the road today.

The maker of my 2014 4WD 28nm will come standard with the following greeting each time I turn the key when I take delivery sometime in May: Welcome, Bruno. Unlike other car makers, rest assure your investment if refundable and your data won't be shared with anybody, unless we get high as a kite and post a screenshot of your name on our Skype friend's list next to a hookah in the Show Me State.

~TMiBTCITW

Exactly one year ago in Utah, a Republican state senator introduced a bill that imposed new regulations on how license plate readers (LPRs) could be used in the Beehive State. That bill was signed into law on April 1, 2013.

As Ars has reported before, these scanners, which have been increasingly deployed in cities and towns across the US, can read, analyze, and store 60 plates per second. Typically, the LPR checks an unknown plate against a "hot list" of wanted or stolen vehicles. But the tricky part is that LPRs aren’t just looking for suspected bad guys. They almost always record and retain the time, date, and precise location of every license plate scanned, often for years or longer.

[...]
“License plates contain no private information whatsoever”

In the companies' 16-page complaint, which was filed in Utah federal court on Thursday, DRN and Vigilant seek a "permanent injunction against the application or enforcement of the Act." They state that prior to the law’s passage, DRN sold a total of 10 LPR camera kits to five repossession and towing companies operating in Utah; those cameras began operation between May 2010 and February 2012.

The alleged First Amendment violation, the plaintiffs argue, occurs because taking a photograph is constitutionally protected. "The State does not have a substantial interest in preventing persons from viewing or photographing license plates—or from disseminating the information collected when doing so—because license plates contain no private information whatsoever," argue the plaintiffs. "Moreover, the photographic recording of government-mandated public license plates does not infringe any 'privacy' interest that concededly is not infringed when the photographer views the plate. Thus, the State cannot carry its heavy burden to demonstrate that it has a substantial interest that is served by the Act."

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/02/private-firms-argue-first-amendment-right-to-collect-license-plate-data/

...Soon to be banned for their pollution level and "lack of security"

There's an easy fix. Just drive an old car!

A Ford Motor executive who said the company tracks and collects data on how Ford customers drive their vehicles said Thursday that he regrets making the comments.

Jim Farley, executive vice president of marketing and sales at Ford, said that he was wrong to suggest to customers that the automaker uses GPS devices in vehicles to collect data on how people drive.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/101323703

"I definitely left the wrong impression with my comments, and I regret it," Farley told CNBC. "It's important to me that our customers know where we stand and that we do not track them."

Wednesday night, while taking part in a panel at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Farley was quoted as saying: "We know everyone who breaks the law, we know when you're doing it. We have GPS in your car, so we know what you're doing. By the way, we don't supply that data to anyone."

Business Insider first reported Farley's comments Thursday morning. The article and Farley's remarks immediately raised concerns that Ford is monitoring drivers without their consent.

Farley told CNBC that his comments were meant to be in response to a hypothetical question about whether or not automakers could track how vehicles are driven. He said the automaker does not have GPS tracking data in the vehicles it sells.

"We do not monitor and aggregate data from our cars," Farley said.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/101324749

So if you are involved in a car crash, you could always say your account was hacked and your vehicle in remote pilot mode...

Ex-wife? I know I'll probably regret writing this a few years down the road but I really don't want to get married and I doubt I ever will lol

Most people laughed when you told them that the USG was spying on everyone.


Simple: Don't tell your wife about Bitcoin. Or simply answer the judge 'What Bitcoins?'  .

How about the lawyer of your future ex wife trying to get all of your last bitcoin? Very dangerous stuff.

And some people here laughed when I voiced my concerns about the black box which is even worse than this, soon you won't be able to take a dump in a service station toilet without a camera pointing at you.

Washington — A government report finds that major automakers are keeping information about where drivers have been — collected from onboard navigation systems — for varying lengths of time. Owners of those cars can’t demand that the information be destroyed. And, says the U.S. senator requesting the investigation, that raises questions about driver privacy.

The Government Accountability Office in a report released Monday found major automakers have differing policies about how much data they collect and how long they keep it.

Automakers collect location data in order to provide drivers with real-time traffic information, to help find the nearest gas station or restaurant, and to provide emergency roadside assistance and stolen vehicle tracking. But, the report found, “If companies retained data, they did not allow consumers to request that their data be deleted, which is a recommended practice.”

The report reviewed practices of Detroit’s Big Three automakers, Toyota Motor Corp., Honda Motor Co. and Nissan Motor Co. It also looked at navigation system makers Garmin and TomTom and app developers Google Maps and Telenav. The report, which didn’t identify the specific policies of individual companies, found automakers had taken steps to protect privacy and were not selling personal data of owners, but said

http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20140107/AUTO01/301070017