All of those electronic ‘convenience’ things in our lives, such as debit cards, just mean that businesses and the government have more ways to keep you under surveillance. From USA Today:
Authorities use Tesla data to track Cybertruck before bombing, raising privacy concerns
by Kathleen Wong | Thursday, January 2, 2024 | 8:58 PM EST | Updated: Friday, January 3, 2025 | 12:08 AM EST
Tesla vehicle telematics and records from a Cybertruck are providing key insights into the New Year’s Day explosion in Las Vegas – data that may not have been available decades ago but which raise troubling questions about how governments and companies track personal travel information.
On Wednesday morning, the vehicle was parked in front of the International Trump Hotel when the explosion went off, injuring seven people. The driver, identified as Matthew Livelsberger, 37, fatally shot himself moments before the Cybertruck exploded. Canisters of fuel, fireworks and two semi-automatic firearms were later discovered in the back of the vehicle, which was rented in Colorado from peer-to-peer car-sharing company Turo Dec. 28.
Authorities continue to investigate whether it was an act of terrorism and traced the Cybertruck’s route from Denver to Las Vegas using Tesla charging station records and other data commonly collected by car manufacturers.
On Wednesday, Tesla CEO Elon Musk confirmed on X that the explosion was unrelated to the Cybertruck itself. “All vehicle telemetry was positive at the time of explosion,” Musk tweeted.
There’s more at the original.
I’m happier than ever that my personal vehicle is a 15-year-old Ford F-150, which doesn’t have all of that stupid s(tuff) in it.
There will be those who say, “Why should you care? This was a crime being committed and investigated, so the police should be able to have and access this data.” But it won’t always be the police, will it? People suspecting their spouses of stepping out on them will eventually wind up suing for electronic data on where their spouses’ vehicles have been. Corporations investigating employees or applicants for medical information or collaborating with competitors might seek this information.
We’ve seen it already, as the police use cell phone data to track people suspected of crimes, and someti8mes those people are innocent. We’ve seen police and private investigators and lawyers and businesses searching bank records and sales receipts concerning where you shop and what you buy.
I support Elon Musk for his purchase of Twitter — I refuse to call it 𝕏 — and the restoration of (mostly) free speech on that social media site, but I sure don’t want him as Big Brother.
Perhaps you should check in with the millions of women who really, really object to government monitoring their menstrual cycles. After all, you voted for the guy who said he “wouldn’t oppose states who wanted to monitor pregnancies”. Big Brother indeed! The irony is real. Freedom for me, but not for thee?
Perhaps you can document for me which governments are doing that? Thank you in advance!
Surely you are aware of Project 2025, wherein the authors, and make no mistake this is with Trump’s blessing, seek to suggest that abortion is “dangerous” to justify proposals to increase pregnancy and abortion surveillance at the federal level? Per Mandate for Leadership pp 455-456
Oops, wrong page. Try 450.
You are aware, aren’t you, that Project 2025 is a policy suggestion, and not an actual law in any state of the union?
Of course, someone could monitor women’s menstrual cycles right now, at least in a backhanded way, by checking debit cards purchases for menstrual products. It wouldn’t be particularly efficient, because any household which had more than one woman of childbearing ages would be a household in which such a method wouldn’t specify which woman was using the products. More, men have been sent to the store plenty of times to buy such products for the women in their homes, and that skews the records as well.