this post was submitted on 31 Dec 2023
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She stopped responding to him, she said, even though he texted and called her hundreds of times.

Ms. Dowdall, 59, started occasionally seeing a strange new message on the display in her Mercedes, about a location-based service called “mbrace.” The second time it happened, she took a photograph and searched for the name online.

“I realized, oh my God, that’s him tracking me,” Ms. Dowdall said.

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[–] Ozymati@lemmy.nz 9 points 10 months ago

Yeah like, ok my hypothetical teenage child borrowing my car, I want to be able to see where the car went and how fast it was going to get there. Because I know from personal experience that teenagers are idiots and need some level of supervision. Similar vein, stolen vehicles. So it's a feature with some utility.

I'm even OK with my insurance company offering a discount if I give them telemetry so they know I drive the speed limit and am not a risk. Though for people on the low end of the economy in a place where insurance is mandatory that can verge on extortion - so I'm only conditionally OK with it, the condition being that there must be a tier of mandatory insurance which is price capped regardless if the telemetry is granted or not. Because in a lot of places not being able to drive cuts people off from pretty much everything.

But I am absolutely not OK with the feature being so insecure that I can't lock users out, and am not notified by several channels about new users. Also I am super not OK with the car company itself getting telemetry without my express permission. I dgaf how it might improve the future product. I bought a car, I did not buy a spy.

In this particluar case though, it is complicated because the technically the ex is the actual owner of the car. I have no idea why the court didn't force him to sign it over to her, but I can see why the car corp isn't being helpful. It's deeply unfortunate that this stalker is able to keep doing his thing via the car but at the same time regardless of how many unlockable doors the car has, it's his behavior that is the proximate issue. Like yeah absolutely get the car fixed, but how about also the legal system steps up and makes this entitled loser knock it off?