Your Car Is Tracking You. Abusive Partners May Be, Too.::Apps that remotely track and control cars are being weaponized by abusive partners. Car manufacturers have been slow to respond, according to victims and experts.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
After one of their fights turned violent in September 2022, Ms. Dowdall, a real estate agent, fled their home in Covington, La., driving her Mercedes-Benz C300 sedan to her daughter’s house near Shreveport, five hours away.
Ms. Dowdall called Mercedes customer service repeatedly to try to remove her husband’s digital access to the car, but the loan and title were in his name, a decision the couple had made because he had a better credit score than hers.
Modern cars have been called “smartphones with wheels” because they are internet-connected and have myriad methods of data collection, from cameras and seat weight sensors to records of how hard you brake and corner.
Detective Kelly Downey of the Bossier Parish Sheriff’s Office, who investigated Ms. Dowdall’s husband for stalking, also reached out to Mercedes more than a dozen times to no avail, she said.
Katie Ray-Jones, the chief executive of the National Domestic Violence Hotline, said abusive partners used a wide variety of internet-connected devices — from laptops to smart home products — to track and harass their victims.
Adam Dodge, a former family law attorney turned digital safety trainer, called car app stalking “a blind spot for victims and automakers.”
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CaptainSpaceman@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Dumb cars will br in high demand soon, like how people really want dumb TVs again
TheRealKuni@lemmy.world 10 months ago
I dunno, I really like the smart features of my car.
That said I also don’t mind most of the smart features of my TV, so perhaps I’m just a normie.
CaptainSpaceman@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Idk who downvoted you, but its a fair stance.
Theres. alot of features on said devices that make them attractive, but many people (myself included) choose to prioritize privacy which makes the PROs and CONs become one-sided.
For example, screen capture on smart TVs is disturbing…