Privacy is the issue (although you are right about the rest of it too!). The fact that all this information has already been let out of the bag doesn't mean it's futile to give up! It's even more reason to fight as its so problematic and pervasive. We need to push back, not let more of our privacy, autonomy and rights fly out of the window.
There are plenty of things you can do to improve your privacy online if you want to:
- Stop allowing anything other than essential cookies
- Use privacy focussed email providers and browsers and messaging apps
- Use a VPN to stop your ISP logging your browsing history.
- Get away as much as you can from Google and Meta
- Set up email aliases and unique passwords
- Limit app use
- Limit which services have access to your location
- Ensure you understand what providers will do with your personal information and if you don't like it, don't sign up, tell them why.
- Delete as much data as you can from the internet
- Don't give your data to social media or other organisations when you don't have to - use sites that don't require it to sign up, or to whom you can give an "online identity" to.
- Turn off all sharing permissions on cars and don't upload your mobile to your car*
Take it one step at a time, and don't get overwhelmed! They want it all to feel confusing and hopeless, don't let the fuckers grind you down!
Privacy also isn't an all or nothing - you can massively reduce what information is known about you, and what you want or need to do wil depend on what privacy and security risks you want to limit/avoid.....except when the government mandates that you have to your entire life on a hackable digital ID card and takes your autonomy to do anything out of your hands.
If anyone wants to start improving their online privacy and security, then this site is really good for tips, how to decide what you want/need to focus on, and suggestions for alternatives:
https://www.privacyguides.org/en/basics/why-privacy-matters/
https://www.privacyguides.org/en/tools/
*Car privacy is an absolute shit show. Car manufacturers are taking all sorts of information about you and being very opaque about it - it differs from manufacturer to manufacturer, but along with location data, but it can include:
Location Data: where you go, how often, and how long you stay
Voice Recordings: Voice recognition systems can record your voice when using in-car commands or interacting with the infotainment system.
Personal and Sensitive Data: Car manufacturers may collect information about your race, immigration status, genetic information, and sexual activity, often through sensors, microphones, and cameras.
Financial and Employment Information: Data related to your income, spending habits, and workplace commuting patterns can be gathered.
Calendar and Activities: Some cars can access and store your calendar events and to-do lists.
Personal Photos & Images: If you connect your phone or use in-car infotainment, your personal photos may be accessible, and the car may capture images from cabin-facing and external cameras.
Text Messages: Again if you connect your phone to your car, cars can read your text messages.
Phone Habits: Connecting your phone or using a manufacturer's app allows the car to collect data on your phone usage, including call logs, text messages, and navigation history.
Inferences and Profiling: Car companies use collected data to make inferences about your intelligence, abilities, interests, and psychological traits.
There are huge concerns about how car manufacturers (who are not like a financial services company which is set up for data security) are storing and transmitting this data - the dat transmissions are in particular known to be insecure when testes. This information is then frequently shared or sold to third parties, including advertisers, insurance firms, data brokers, and sometimes even law enforcement, often without clear user consent.
The big issues is that they are all pretty much doing it, in many you can't turn off transmission of data to the manufacturer, and for those you can, many of the options and terms are so woolly it's unclear if there is no data transmission, or not. Also turning of data transmission means you usually lose access to functions on your very expensive car that you just paid a fortune for because you want to use all the bells and whistles, as you should be able to without also having to give away all your data for free . So they have you over a bit of a barrel which they are unlikely to change without legislation So I'm intending to write to my MP and the ICO on this one. If more people do the same, there might be some change. If we continue being passive about it and saying there's no hope, we'll definitely just continue down this path of losing more and more privacy and security.
Finding out about the car data issue is what actually moved me from being passive to wanting to fight back. Fuck off Honda or Kia or VW - no I don't want you have recordings of my conservations and images in a place where I should have a reasonable expectation of privacy (and my passengers who definitely haven't agreed to any T&Cs before entering my car), or be taking all my text messages, AND without making it blatantly and explicitly clear that's what they are doing. It's so underhand. It angers me quite frankly, that they are allowed to do this, and make it seem inert by using words like "your data", as opposed to "we will take all your text messages and listen the conversations you are having in your car". There should be fucking black box warnings in simple and plain English telling people exactly what they are up to, and what they will be doing with that data.
This is a good YouTube series about car privacy that I haven't watched in full as yet (so don't shoot the messenger if it gets less good at the end!). Disclaimer: Youtube is owned by Google, if you want to access YT without being tracked then are suggestions of how to do this, on Privacy Guides (linked to above).
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLt3zZ-N423gVRXVr5VTFglMdP4S1MN0Ro