Autonomous vehicles; police, insurers and government
 

Future telematics realities/horrors; takeover hacking, any law enforcement can 'order' and stop any self-driving vehicle, auto insurance companies 'constantly' track travel habit data, GPS locations shared/sold to third-party marketing and local/state governments track your mileage tax/fees...
RAND report: Self-driving cars could give police new powers.

Hardly limited to self-driving vehicles. All of that can, in principle, be done with any "connected" vehicle. Some of it has been demonstrated - see links elsewhere in the forum.

It'd also be possible (again, in principle) to build a self-driving vehicle that isn't connected, and therefore would be immune to hacking &c by anyone who doesn't have physical access to it.

Insurance companies could today require every one of their customers to install a tracking device as part of their coverage. Technically the autonomous cars wouldn't need the tracking as they would already be driving in a safe manner.
What we need isn't to eliminate every possible technology that could be abused by government, but to eliminate every government official who would want to use that technology to abuse the people. What the IRS has already done is so much worse then any possible thing that might happen 20 years from now this article discusses.

That is one reason (among many) *why* GM implemented OnStar™ years in-advance of gooberment (EPA/DOT) mandate for "tracking" capabilities, ie: "remote & continuous" emissions monitoring (OBD-III). They (GM) marketed it for the "driver's" capabilities & enhancements, but it is truly about GM feedback and gooberment tracking & control over vehicles.

I just read the article and it brings up interesting points of discussion. At the end of the article it asks the question, "should a warrant be required to access vehicle logs"? Of course the answer is yes, just as a warrant would be required to access the information on any other computer I own. I don't find that particular question to be very interesting, unless I'm missing some important reason the government should have access to such information without restrictions.

I think it would be very easy to argue for giving officers control of a vehicle where the occupant has been identified as a criminal. We already allow officers to perform "pit maneuvers" in these instances, and sending a command to a vehicle to pull over is just a less violent approach to forcing compliance.

Of course, criminals will always find ways to circumvent systems of control that maintain order. It's the same problem laws that regulate who and where firearms can be carried is ineffective. Law abiding citizens don't need the system of regulation, and criminals ignore the regulation.

I can see a lot of boring movies in the future without the car chases.

Most people are already being tracked by GPS by third party through their smart phone, its part of the useage agreements in either the contract, or to use many apps. And it has already gone to court about law enforcement needing a warrant to get access to that information.

Warrants. Riiight. Didn't that Snowden guy release a couple papers detailing exactly how much the folks we hired actually care about warrants and other legalities?

But, the smart phone owner can "turn OFF" that GPS function when/if they desire to...you can't do that in your car, short of pulling certain fuses, which the car dealership won't tell you about.

Shutting off the GPS will make all apps that use it not work...

Shutting off the location history will make some apps not work as well... At least that's what they claim. Its just a matter of knowing what you use can make you easier to follow. I know its there but chose to use it anyways.

And so? There are only a small percentage of apps (mapping/tracking stuff, basically) that need GPS. FTM, you can simply turn off the phone/remove the battery/leave it at home if you don't care to be tracked. And of course a certain degree of tracking is inherent to any cell phone, since the signal can/has to be triangulated by the nearest towers.

For a GPS built into a car, it would be pretty simple for the technically inclined to disconnect the antenna, and feed in signals showing it to be anywhere on Earth - or even in orbit :-)

...a process called "spoofing..."

I made a simple and very true statement that most people are being tracked already, it doesn't matter how easy/hard it is to turn it off, its just a fact. Having an autonomous car running around which has to know where it is and where it is going isn't going to change the fact that the people riding around in them are most likely already being tracked and by more than one method, ie. credit/atm card purchases.

Largely its a choice, if you want the convenience you accept the stuff that goes along with it.

But, NOT always so, IF people don't LET it happen!

So why does that equate to "tracking"? First, you don't absolutely need GPS to implement a self-driving car, any more than (intelligent) humans need GPS to drive. You can always go IFR (I Follow Roads :-), with a built-in map.

Second, even if you have GPS in your car (or on your phone, tablet, or whatever), the GPS itself is read-only. Only if your device is somehow programmed to transmit the position computed from the GPS signals could some other entity use it for tracking.

And if you have a cell phone at all, it contacts towers all the time. Otherwise every call to every cell phone would have to pass through every cell tower everywhere to make sure it actually made it to your phone.

No, the cell phone network can't reliably track exactly where you are, but they don't have to. In fact, the vagueness of the tracking works to their advantage.

If i could buy a self driving car right now, i would. I drive 60 miles one way for work. It would be incredible if i could read the news and get ready for the day on the way to work and then make phone calls on the way home. Honestly, i cant wait.

I hear from a lot of people that they don't like technology and new things or xyz whatever because they don't want their information being used.

I hate to break it to you but if someone (not necessarily the government) wants information, there are ways to get it. Ever heard of a security breach? Hell china knows as much about you and i as we know about ourselves.

Nope. China (or anyone else collecting electronic information) can only know what's out there in the cybersphere, which is a) only a miniscule fraction of what there is to know; and b) mostly not relatable to me as an individual.

WRT point a, I'm always amused/puzzled/heartened by reports of jihadists &c who spend years making their beliefs & intentions public before actually doing anything. What exactly are these people using for brains? "Two people can keep a secret, if one of them is dead."

That's my point. It doesn't matter that no judge would give anyone permission to find out anything they want- lack of judicial permission isn't a barrier to crooks, cops, bureaucrats or companies.

I pity the fool that steals my identity. Please let it be an illegal alien who works and ends up paying a bunch into my social security account. My sister-in-law used to be worried about the spy satellites the government had that could look right into your windows. I told her ain't nobody wanna see that and if they did they don't need a billion dollar satellite as your ex already posted it on all the porn sites anyway.

Sorry, i didn't mean to direct that towards you.

Aside from the humor, thats my point exactly! If someone wanted your ss# or credit card# or whatever, they dont need the internet. Banks, car dealers, stores where you have a credit card, etc. all have that info. Small car dealers are probably the least secure.