Cars May Be Next To Gather Our Data
There are indications that our cars might, in time, become as nosey as our phones about what we get up to.
Commentators on the Net are looking at the amount of data ‘connected cars’ are collecting and pondering where that might lead to.
Systems intended to provide manufacturers feedback about performance and allow remote software updates are, it seems, being seen as having other potential future uses.
Last year, General Motors undertook a pilot in the US tracking the radio listening habits of 90,000 of its connected car drivers. It has been speculated that GM has a concept of using the car for targeting advertising as a revenue generating wheeze.
Latest hi-tech cars are riddled with cameras and sensors, both outward and inward facing.
Theoretically, a car can tell its manufacturer what pub car parks its driver stops in and read the brand names from shopping dropped in the passenger seat.
Information like this could allow a picture of driver preferences to be built up and used to inform which ads are heard between music tracks or pop up in increasingly sophisticated dashboard display screens. “Feeling thirsty? There is a drive-in Costa in 400 yards.”
A car can carry a lot more computing power than a smartphone and owners of connected cars generally sigh terms and conditions of data use, which are a pre-requisite of using the on-board systems, without reading the reams of small print.
Meanwhile, I reckon a car asking you to ‘please rate the Albert Street Car Park for the benefit of other drivers’ could be even more irritating than a phone demanding to know ‘how was the Bengal Tandoori?’
