BMW’s research project “Virtual marketplace of the future” offers personalized services such as traffic alerts, parking assistance, and other location-based services.
This emerging age of the connected car scares me.
The latest: the Nikkei Asian Review reports that the Japanese government is putting together a single platform designed to allow the sharing of massive amounts of information on cars and drivers – everything from registration information to accident and inspection records, to auto makers' records on vehicle locations, distances travelled and service records.
So it will be one-stop shopping for anyone who wants to know where you drive, what you drive, how you drive, how fast you drive, how long you drive and how well you maintain your car. And the Japanese government plans to outsource the system management to the private sector.
And then there's this: The Wall Street Journal points to in-car wireless, navigation and infotainment systems, and on-board black boxes, as great miners about where you are and when, as well as how you drive and how often. If you drive a connected car and use any sort of smartphone, you're on someone's radar.
This seems to be something many buyers want. According to an Accenture survey released in December (Connected Vehicle: What Drivers Want), 30 per cent of drivers surveyed indicated that in-vehicle technology was the primary deciding factor when purchasing a new car.
Yes, I have old-fashioned, 20th-century ideas about privacy – that the right to it is a given and an integral part of any free and democratic society. But I am apparently among a shrinking pool of drivers for whom the car has always represented freedom and possibilities, not being connected 24/7 and never being alone.
Aldous Huxley foresaw something like this in Brave New World -- an update of which is forging along as car companies, suppliers and governments develop the technology and infrastructure to enable the technology to collect and broadcast your data.
The sends shivers up and down my spine. You?
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