Summary:
- Self-driving cars collect a massive amount of data, including visual and other information.
- This data could be used to track people’s movements, which could pose a threat to privacy.
- There is a lot of uncertainty about how this data is stored, secured, and accessed.
- Law enforcement agencies have already served warrants to self-driving car companies for footage.
- It is important to have strong privacy laws that address the data collected by self-driving cars.
- We need to know more about how much footage police request and how companies respond to these requests.
- Regulators need to consider the civil liberties implications of self-driving car data collection.
I do keep this monthly reminder that all my moves are tracked. I find it’s better to be kept aware of this than to play it like an ostrich.
This said, in Europe at least, opting out of this service should force google to drop your data, and retain it only in aggregate forms that do not allow reidentifying you.