TomTom kicked up a privacy duststorm last week by admitting it had sold users travel data to Dutch police so they could better place speed cameras. According to David Ramli at the Financial Review, TomTom Australia is set to sell your data to the highest bidder later this year.It’s not really a secret that TomTom has been collecting journey data for itself over the past few years, in order to offer better traffic advice through its iQ Routes function, but according to the Ramli piece, that information is set to be sold off.
Drivers in The Netherlands who noticed that speed traps were a little too perfectly placed lately weren’t just being paranoid; turns out local cops have had a wealth of TomTom driving data – including historical speed – at their disposal. Because TomTom sold it to them. Et tu, satnav?TomTom has since apologised for the privacy breach, saying their original intent was to prevent traffic bottlenecks and and improve safety. Although if they were doing it out of the goodness of their hearts, wouldn’t they have just donated the info instead of concocting lucrative licensing deals?
That news is hardly new. I think it is 2 weeks old at the least by now.Either way, it is worrying.-worstje (May 06, 2011, 09:16 AM)
It's a creeping disease... Infection is just taking hold here.-Renegade (May 06, 2011, 10:36 AM)
It's a creeping disease... Infection is just taking hold here.-Renegade (May 06, 2011, 10:36 AM)It is becoming quite clear that our rights & privacy are up for sale to the highest bidder. And usually by the same bunch of randy assholes that keep telling us about how dangerous HacKerS are. Ha!-Stoic Joker (May 06, 2011, 11:28 AM)
Any chance we can cook up a Gray Hat hacking group? Or is that what Anonymous is for?-Stoic Joker (May 06, 2011, 11:28 AM)