How Much Data Does Your Connected Car Harvest?

The prevalence of connected cars in India will also increase especially when 5G networks are launched in India.

By Sahil Gupta

1 mins read

Published on December 29, 2020

Highlights

A person in the US was arrested because of a voice recording
The voice recording derived from the car was used by the police
In Australia, a person took control of his friend's vehicle using an app

An insightful report by NBC News has revealed that the privacy and sanctity of the location data of your vehicle may not be as secure as you think. The report reveals scary levels of data that's been revealed by the report. It also reveals how this data can be collected by the police or criminals. As per the report, your vehicle could be harvesting all kinds of data that includes location data, data which reveals when the door is opened or closed, and even recordings of your voice which is a gross violation of privacy. The NBC report cites the example of Joshua Wessel, a man who has been charged for murder in the US because the victim's truck had a recording of his voice at the time of the killing. The same report also looks at a company called Berla which has built a business out of extracting that data on behalf of the police. The Kia Sonet comes loaded with co The report cites another example of a man in Australia who used an app to access live data from his ex-girlfriend's Land Rover. He was not only able to access the information in the car, but also control the car, remotely turning it on and off which is a facet of connected cars. Now, this report is not from India. It is likely not very relevant to India as there is a paucity of connected cars on the roads. But that is slowly changing with the new Hyundai i20 becoming the first hatchback to offer connected car tech. Connected cars have access to tech like unique IDs, Bluetooth, WiFi and also an e-SIM that's always connected to a network. Hyundai BlueLink Connected tech is increasingly becoming common its cars and brings a lot of convenience for its users The prevalence of connected cars in India will also just increase especially when 5G networks are launched in India. Reliance Jio has already said that its homegrown 5G network is ready for deployment and it wants auctions for the spectrum to happen for the same as soon as possible. Likely, we will have some kind of a 5G auction in 2021, but the roll-out of networks will probably not happen anytime before 2022 as telecom operators like Airtel and Vodafone aren't financially as able as Jio to roll the new networks at scale so fast.