An interesting piece from ft.com highlights how BMW is sounding a bit of an alarm about connected car data. The data itself is not bad, but they are noting that there is pressure from advertising companies and silicon valley tech companies to get their hands on that data.
Ian Robertson, BMW board member, is quoted as saying "There's plenty of people out there saying: give us all the data you’ve got and we can tell you what we can do with it" ... "And we’re saying: No thank you".
He goes on to bring up some interesting examples of potential use or misuse of the data. He cites the car's ability to know whether an adult or child is in the car, based on the airbag system's weight sensor. Then based on the engine start time, they could tell how long the car has been running, based on the navigation system they could see the car is about to pass a McDonald's. This would be prime fodder for advertisement, because as he puts it: "from the navigation system, they’re about to pass a McDonald’s, the car’s been running for three hours and the child’s probably hungry"
Scary stuff.
Source:
Financial Times