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Last year, I submitted a "right to know" request to Subaru, and they sent the following back. I've reformatted it for legibility. Basically asserts they'll do and sell whatever they want (except another car to me).

> Subaru may collect the following personal information about a consumer:

> Categories of personal information:

> Identifiers: Consumer records, Commercial information, Internet or Other Electronic Network Activity, Audio recordings, Vehicle geolocation, Professional or employee-related information, Inferences, Sensitive personal information

> Categories of sources from which the personal information is collected: Retailers, i.e. authorized Subaru dealerships , Provided by consumer or vehicle, Third parties

> Business or commercial purpose for which Subaru collects or sells personal information: To provide services to the consumer, To market goods and services to consumers, To provide marketing by third parties for third party goods and/or services, To comply with legal obligation

> Categories of third parties with whom the personal information is shared: Business service providers, Contractors, Retailers, Corporate parent and affiliates, Third party providers of goods and/or services, Entities required to comply with the law

> Categories of personal information sold: Identifiers for third party marketing of goods or services., Consumer records for third party marketing of goods or services

> Categories of personal information disclosed for business purpose: Identifiers are disclosed to service providers, contractors, and third parties., Consumer records are disclosed to service providers, contractors, and third parties., Commercial information is disclosed to service providers, contractors, and third parties., Internet or other electronic information is disclosed to service providers, contractors, and third parties., Vehicle geolocation is disclosed to service providers., Inferences are disclosed to service providers and contractors., Sensitive personal information is disclosed to service providers and contractors.




This is pretty well known and true for almost all car manufacturers. A few years ago there was a small upset about this [1]. My Opel (a Stellantis brand) happily shows me a message that it is now sharing my location data and that I can change that by pressing the message now -- while I drive. It never shows the message when the car is not moving. I lavishly spread a blanket of Hanlon's Razor over this.

[1] https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/privacynotincluded/article...


Good to know

Seems pretty blanket wide legalese. The part about audio recordings seems a bit troublesome however


The non troublesome use-case is clicking the starlink button and taking to their support.

Having bought a Subaru, I really tried to see where the consent is in the process. In my case, I think it’s the account establishment process that the dealer did.


How is that supposed to work for second hand vehicles?


> that the dealer did

is that even legal?

can one go to court for "absence of consent"?


”You opted-in and consented to sharing of information by looking at the car”


In this case, how is consent revoked?


But not in the UK or EU.

Need I say which law protects us..... the one a significant number of HN readers (a technical news site!) appear to remain in shocking ignorance of?


You can do this in the UK or EU if you like; you just need to have permission to do so from the data subject.


How does that work if the car's sold? The car itself doesn't know it's been sold.




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