Edit: Just asked because of curiosity. I’m not actually looking for such vehicles.

Edit 2: So for context, my parents new Toyota has this feature that allows the GPS location of the car to be sent to toyota, then you can see the location via an app on android/ios (it’s supposed to be an anti-theft feature). The data is sent via an antenna that connects to cell towers, which then connects to the internet, and to the toyota servers. “Diagnostic” and “maintenance” information is also sent via those same antennas.

The dealer said it could be turned off, but who knows if they are really off. There’s not a hard switch on the car.

  • dhork@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    4
    ·
    1 year ago

    It can easily be “pseudo-anonymized”, where each car is given a large random number, and geolocation data is indexed solely by that number, with no other identifying info. Except we all know that they probably have a deal with Facebook or some other shit website, so Meta can link your pseudonomynous driving data with whoever’s Facebook profile is in the car most of the time.

    • FuglyDuck@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      6
      ·
      1 year ago

      It’s still an ID. Even just the geolocation/trips.

      They see where you start, they see where you end. Most likely, the most common places are going to be your home adress and work adress. Unless you park in a paid lot/ramp (in the city, for example,), that’ll both give a solid idea of your identity.

      And that’s just using the end points. Google trims the ends of the rides (2 min, iirc,) but even then, that gets you to a neighborhood, and with more data, and knowing average time to pass to the various points (data they have in spades,) well, they can use that to start triangulating houses.

      The point being, it doesn’t matter how anonymized the data is. The reason it’s valuable is that you are unique - and the data you generate is unique. Given enough of it, it’ll always point back to you.