CREATORS
May 20, 2025
Most late-model vehicles have the ability to log speed, when
and where a vehicle's lights are turned on, which doors are opened and closed
at specific locations as well as gear shifts, odometer readings, ignition
cycles — and that is only the tip of the iceberg.
Preinstalled safety and performance features that car
dealers push on consumers can increase a driver's exposure to government
surveillance and the likelihood of being the subject of a police investigation.
As the U.S. Supreme Court has extended protections to the
privacy of your smartphone, your car has unexpectedly become a safe haven for
law enforcement to access your personal information without a warrant.
In 2018, the Supreme Court ruled that the Fourth Amendment,
which prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures, protects cell phone
location information. In an opinion by Chief Justice John Roberts, the court
recognized that location information collected by cell providers creates a
"detailed chronicle of a person's physical presence compiled every day,
every moment over years."
Subsequent court rulings have clearly established that
individuals can maintain an expectation of privacy in information that they
provide to third parties. As a result, the police must now get a warrant before
obtaining cell phone data.
According to documents reviewed by WIRED Magazine, law
enforcement agencies regularly train on how to take advantage of
"connected cars."
For instance, the California Highway Patrol trains officers
on how to acquire data using a variety of hypothetical scenarios, each
describing how vehicle data can be acquired based on the year, make, and model
of a vehicle.
When police are focused on a suspect, they will often use a
technique known as a "ping" to geographically locate a specific
device known to belong to that suspect. A cellphone ping can put a specific
person in the area of a cellphone tower at or near a specific time.
However, according to WIRED, when police have a crime scene
and no suspect, investigators will rely on a procedure known as a "tower
dump," requesting that an Internet Service Provider cast a wider net and
identify virtually any devices that have connected to a specific cell tower
during a certain period of time. Investigators can examine the data and analyze
it contemporaneously with access to storefront surveillance footage, traffic
cameras and even doorbell cameras to identify a person or vehicle.
In some instances, a vehicle owner who had not purchased a
safety or performance subscription may still be producing data that is being
maintained by the manufacturer and ultimately available for review by law
enforcement.
Access to personal information goes beyond what police might
find when trying to recreate an individual's whereabouts — more alarming is
what an individual may voluntarily make available to police.
Plugging into your vehicle is the same as throwing your
personal information in the garbage and putting it out on the curb. In 1988,
the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a California case that the Fourth Amendment
does not require police obtain a warrant before searching trash containers
placed on the curb.
No person has a reasonable expectation of privacy in items
left in a public place. "What a person knowingly exposes to the public,
even in his own home or office, is not a subject of Fourth Amendment
protection," said the justices. That goes for personal information dumped
into a vehicle's data system.
An individual who rents a vehicle and plugs their phone in
for directions, or music, or to make a hands-free call may have unwittingly
left their personal information in the vehicle. It's like throwing your diary
in the trash can. As a result, law enforcement can access that personal,
sometimes embarrassing, and maybe even incriminating, information without a
warrant.
Jay Stanley, a senior policy analyst at the American Civil
Liberties Union, told WIRED, "It's an ongoing scandal that this kind of
surveillance is taking place without people being aware of it, let alone
permitting it."
Matthew T. Mangino is of counsel with Luxenberg, Garbett,
Kelly & George P.C. His book The Executioner's Toll, 2010 was released by
McFarland Publishing. You can reach him at www.mattmangino.com and follow him
on Twitter @MatthewTMangino
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