“You’re a computer, Tesla.“
So, uh, fun fact: Teslas manage to accrue a lot of data about their drivers. And more than you’d think, too. Videos of crashes, photos taken with interior cameras, location history, contact and calendar information from paired phones, all kinds of little things. And all of it is stored without encryption. Which, on any other device, would certainly give you pause.
It’s never quite obvious when they’re collecting data, either. And it doesn’t help that shutting off that data sharing feature also disables over-the-air updates. Tesla’s pretty secretive about this data, too; the only way to access any car telemetry is a $995 proprietary data cable. Per CNBC, former Tesla employees speaking under anonymity stated that the company uses this data to identify owners who tamper or investigate their cars, flagging them for late software updates.
Two researchers going by the pseudonyms GreenTheOnly and Theo (both white hat hackers) sifted through the wrecks of hundreds of Teslas inhabiting junkyards. They also happened to note that it’s never readily apparent when those inward-facing cameras are recording; it can happen at any time, even when parked. To be fair, though, Tesla’s not the only one doing it; other manufacturers with smart car systems collect similar telemetry from drivers. They are, however, the only one that makes people go to great lengths to discover that data. And they store much, much more of that data than their competitors.
Tesla is not super transparent about what and when they are recording, and storing on internal systems. You can opt out of all data collection. But then you lose [over-the-air software updates] and a bunch of other functionality. So, understandably, nobody does that, and I also begrudgingly accepted it.
GreenTheOnly
Source: BoingBoing
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