A Seattle-based appellate judge ruled that the practice does not meet the threshold for an illegal privacy violation under state law, handing a big win to automakers Honda, Toyota, Volkswagen and General Motors.
That’s a very good reason to not connect your phone to your car.
That’s a very good reason to not buy any car which has this interception “feature”.
That’s a very good way of saying don’t buy anything built in the last five years
Appellate court (appellate judge) aka second instance court. So while not the end of discussion, that is quite absurd.
I’m short of time so I haven’t found the original complaint but according to the appeals court ruling, the plaintiffs never claimed any actual damages. The heading of the law in question is “Violating right of privacy—Civil action—Liability for damages.”
Is this a privacy violation? Yes. Did these people suffer any actual damages under the law? Evidently not.
I bought my first car this year, I am very happy with it, it is a 2021 Seat Leon PHEV, but shit like this is terrible.
I remember several years ago when I noted that cars had started comming with emergency SOS buttons and apps, that made me realize that there had to be a built in mobile phone connection, and after reading some more, yep, I was right, automakers put in a cell phone module with an eSIM that is allways connected, meaning the car keeps talking to the automakers servers, even if you don’t connect a phone.
This means that it is worth it to the automakers to add a phone module and continously pay for a subscription for every car, even if you don’t use the feature, that is scary.
Ok so maybe the legislature should stop it
encrypt everything, layers and layers of encryption and then feed them garbage
