http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/09/onstar-tracks-you/

With the OnStar GPS, they collect information on your location and speed and keep it. And they say they are not selling this data, but get requests for it often and may sell it in the future. The data would be anonymized so it shouldn't track back to an individual.

They are changing their terms of service that makes it so they can continue to collecting your location and speed even after you cancel the service. The reason for this is to make it easier to re-enroll into the service. You can contact them and request that they stop collecting information after canceling if you want.


Awesome.

I bet city planners are really interested in this data, and possibly law enforcement (where should we set up our speed traps?). They're going to sale this, they're not collecting it for altruism or product and process improvement that's for sure.

By the way, depending upon the state a corporation is in, they can legally say they aren't selling or sharing customer data while actually doing so. All kinds of loop holes. I worked for a company in Virginia (Japanese but this arm was in VA) and they did this. Straight up mirrored certain portions of their Peoplesoft databases with other companies at 24:00 every night (I designed the task and process).

 

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Not to get all paranoid, but OnStar is one of the best "Big Brother" technologies out there.
They can also stop your car.. so yeah you cancel it, but they still track you and can activate it and take control of your vehicle at any time.
Sure it's great for law enforcement, but I think they do not explain all details to their customers. There should be an easy way to turn it off completely from the customer's side.

Definitely something I would not want in my car, but to each their own.

 

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You can yank a fuse or two. Not something the laymen would know but it can be done. It isn't strictly integrated into the computer to my knowledge.

 

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They now sell these at best buy. I dont know how much control these mirror add ons have, but they're expanding beyond GM cars.

 

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I have no plans to buy a Government Motors car anyway.

You can contact OnStar and have the service completely disconnected from your vehicle, thereby becoming untraceable. Big Brother will work as long as you let him, but you can shut him down.

 

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If OnStar can "completely" shut you down remotely...they can turn it right back on again. I know for certain that unless you physically disable the components...they can access their equipment any time they choose. LE contacts the company all the time to locate stolen vehicles...even when the "service" has never been used or been requested "turned off."

 

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The point was probably you can contact OnStar and stop your data from being needlessly collected.

And if your vehicle gets stolen, with your consent law enforcement might still be able to use OnStar to recover it for you.
And even possibly with a court order and a body in your trunk, LE might even find your car without your consent.

Ravy,
You are the last person I'd attempt to argue semantics with. My point was that the system is NEVER off. If you think otherwise, then you are just naive (and I don't mean that as an insult). Nobody other than yourself is interested in protecting your privacy. A small review of geotracking will convince you of that. Anyone who wants the system disabled should do no less than physically disabling it.

Getting the location of your car takes nothing more than a phone call to 1-888-4onstar. Of course...they charge you for an "activation" fee of course if you aren't a current subscriber

 

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