On-Star: Knows where you've been.
 

And it tells all it knows.

I wonder what the criteria is for warrants of this nature: murder, rape, abduction, assault, failure to appear, domestic issues, traffic warrants?

I think I'll just remove any vehicle with On-Star from my list of potential new rides.

On the other hand - should Mrs. Moonie go missing and you'd had nothing to do with it could not the records be used in your defense?

Since I do not do anything that would warrant knowing where the heck I've been, I would have no issue with having an On-Star equipped vehicle.

I WOULD have an issue with governmentally mandated On-Starring of vehicles.

Although I am certain that the above sentence will be attacked.

Do you have curtains on your home windows?
When you go to the bathroom do you close the door?

The desire for privacy does not imply misdeeds.

As an individual your right to privacy is your ability to shut out society. The goverment and Ford Motor company should not be able to database your every move.

The problem I have with systems like On-Star is that there are currently no consumer protection laws on this type of data as there are for credit card transactions.

For example, what would stop On-Star from letting K-Mart know that Mr. Baby just started visting the little-tykes day care center every morning?

I would hardly call On-Stars privacy statment consumer friendly.

But you do not have to purchase a vehicle that has onstar. And even if you do, you are not forced to activate it and pay for their services. If you're stupid enougth to have onstar search for a perfect place to dump a body, well then you're not that bright in the first place.

There's a similar issue with cell phones, many ship with gps. With sprint you can track your kid's phones for $9.99 a month.

How about the marketing company that tracks your moves online that now matches the data with on-star - that matches that data with what you bought at the grocery store...

Doesn't it bother you that data mining companies know more about you then they need to?

I always thought big brother woudl be the government. Now it's going to be them and the data mining companies that sell all that info they collect about me.

Maddy's phone with verizon also has the gps capability. It's not activated but it is there.

Data mining doesn't bother me at all. If my gps could tell the supermarket that I'm almost there and my fridge could tell the gps to tell the market I'm out of eggs and they would be waiting for me at checkstand 3 I'd be all over it.

I'm afraid you are wrong on that account. A cell phone can be used to track and even eavesdrop on you even when it is turned off.

How would you feel about this officer being able to track Maddy's every move? After all if she's done nothing wrong then you don't have any worries right?

I support the above sentences.

But On-Star is a bit creepy (I was hesitant to enable GPS on my cell phone, once upon a time), and I wouldn't pay for such a service.

Which makes sense. Why would the company track and record your car's every move? That's a lot of data to store, and storing massive amounts of data costs money. How would they profit?

But any wackadoodle could camp out by her school and track her that way. There will always be some creepy person doing something.

On the other hand were she do turn up missing her phone could be used to find her. So you have to take the good with the bad.

Make a deal with the local towns. They have cameras to catch you if you run a red light. Why not send out a ticket when your speed exceeds the speed limit? They have all the pieces, your speed and your location. It could all be automated easily.

I think your idea of "massive" is a bit outdated.

A set of GPS coordinates can easily be stored in a single long-integer.

That means a single $400 Terabyte drive could hold something like 137,438,953,472 position records. Let's say I'd like to track a car for every person living in Los Angeles (~9,949,081). With just the hard drive atached to my own personal PC I could track 13,814 descreet locations per car.

Any minute now, Sylvester Stallone is going to jump out from behind a bush and knit a sweater.

Related: In at least one case, records from a Fast-Track automated highway toll system have been used to prove in a divorce case that someone was cheating on his wife.

So this does not worry you?

I dated a cop in the 80's and my best friend's mom was a highway patrol dispatcher. This has all been common forever. Her mom would always "check out" her dates.

In a way, On-Star is sort of like Santa...

And that makes you want to make MORE data available to these people?

I'm sorry, I just don't get that.

It really doesn't bother me that if somoene wanted to look me up they could get information. Maybe someone has, maybe someone is right now? Any information they got would be boring as heck.

Almost everything we do leave a transaction record. That will continue to be the case and I don't really want to go back to the technology where that won't be the case.

Every transaction record, if stored, will end up being available to government review with warrant/subpoena and I am ok with that. You're free to not buy an On-Star enabled car. If enough people refuse to buy the service because of records that are stored, then On-Star will stop storing the records. I wouldn't support the government requiring On-Star to keep records such as those, but I don't have a problem with the government being able to subpoena them if they exist.

Character: "Doing the right thing when no one is looking"

So what is it called when you're doing the right thing when everyone is looking?

:)

:snap: :snap: :snap: :snap:

I still think this is much ado about nothing. OnStar, by its own admission, does not keep track of your vehicle's whereabouts.

That's my opinion on the subject as well.

Oh, I love OnStar!! {and with a name like MouseWife, ya know I got nothin' to hide!}

I don't have it on my car, but, my husband has it on his. Wow, what a comfort it has been when we've needed it. In the mountains, we came upon an accident, no cell phone coverage. On Star is satellite and so we got through and reported it. We didn't have a clue where we were but they zeroed in on our location.

We've reported accidents, backwards freeway drivers, asked for directions, had our vehicle checked, found locations of the local dealer {great for when out of town and aren't familiar}.

I wish that my Escape had what my husbands' Ion has. It is the only thing we are missing when on road trips. That and his radio, not Sirius but...

Anywho, yes, I am amazed at the information they can get and how they can find things out. The missing persons cases solved, the murders solved, what about the people lost on Mt. Hood? What we need are batteries that don't die so quickly {or people to remember to charge them...or carry a spare on such trips?}

I do understand not wanting the government to know our info. But, like was said, you take the good and you take the bad.

And, we've never received any spam in the two years we've had it.

Oh, you will rot in hell for this.

You take the good, you take the bad,
you take them both and there you have
The facts of life, the facts of life.

:mad::mad:

LOL Now that's where I got it from! Toot! Tootie!!

Now, the world don't move to the beat of just one drum, What might be right for you, may not be right for some

:D

Well, different strokes for different folks, I say! ;)

You shall all burn in hell.

Is it campfire sing-along time?

Innnnnnnn West Philadelphia born and raised...

I know where you've been. I've placed GPS in your nads and/or ovaries.

Yes to the first one, but no on the second (we actually took the door off the water closet in the master bedroom, but that was strictly for logistics). But we don't have kids, so my answer to the second one might be different if we did.

Absolutely! And one has a choice as to whether they want On Star or not. I like choice. Just about every choice has pluses and minuses. And the weight of each factor is up to the individual to decide.

It is GM, not Ford, that has On-Star.
There are (IMO) two different arguments going on against the OP issue: How one feels about the government having access to your data and how one feels about businesses having access to your data.

Personally, I, for the most part, don't have an issue with businesses having marketing data on me. I would rather receive targeted advertising than blanketed advertising. I want KMart to know that I now have a baby in the house so that I know what they sell that might be of interest to me.

Besides, data mining is already rampant in our world. If you buy a house, you are flooded with advertising that would be of interest to a new homeowner. If you have a baby (regardless of On Star), you will be flooded with baby advertising.

We cannot let the proverbial bad apple spoil the bushel. The exceptions should not dictate the rules for all. Otherwise, we would have to strip any and all technology from our lives.

Actually, I think their privacy statement is very consumer friendly. It states right up front what you can expect. That way, one can make an informed decision. For you, On Star is a no-go. For me, if it was a vehicle that I wanted, I would want On Star (at least based on the conversation at hand).

I LOVE that you call the WC by it's proper name ! :snap: :cheers:

Risible Mojo to you.

Especially so as in this case, the toilet and shower are the WC and the sink and dressing area (all carpeted) are outside the door (or where the door used to be). The reason we took the door off (and replaced with a curtain) was that when you went in, you had to be a contortionist to get the door closed.

As opposed to sinkable mojo?!?

Sorry, meant "Risible"

(rhymes with "visible" - I thought I was being appropriately punny.)

Hay - I learnt a new wurd today. I just thought it was a typo.

Oh gawd.. and I thought it was Engrish!!!!

I should probably add that a professor of mine from southern China pronounces her Vs like Rs.

I'm not to keen on the privacy issue, but I've kind of already accepted its inevitability. Heck, already it's hard to go anywhere where you aren't on camera.

After seeing Wim Wenders End of Violence I started to notice all the roadside cameras, not to mention security cams outside practically every building and inside every retail establishment.

Oh man....I had to seriously take this into consideration...it made me decide to stop dancing through Target....

If the music suited me... :D
and if the kids deserved to be embarrassed...:evil:

So this is how personal freedoms die. Not with a cry but with a meh.

That is the lesson of history, yes. But you haven't really demonstrated that any personal freedoms are dying in this regard.

Except for very narrow exclusions the traces and trails we leave behind when interacting with the world outside ourselves have always been fair game to criminal investigation (the exclusions are broader for civil investigation).

Bank records have always been discoverable, we now just route more of our financial lives directly through banks than we did 50 years ago before credit and debit cards. I don't have to use plastic and leave that trail but the convenience is worth the exposure, in my opinion.

The government has always been able to example hotel registration records, those records are just now easier to access with the majority of hotels being part of major conglomerations keeping central databases. I don't have to stay in them, if I want my lodgings to be more opaque to prying eyes I can stay at independently owned B&Bs, but I hate teddy bears on my bed.

I really don't see any personal freedom dying here. The activities involved are not really any less private than they ever were, the record keeping is just more organized than they used to be.

IMHO, if we expend more energy keeping an eye on the government itself, and commit ourselves to transparency, we could live very public lives with plenty of trails and not have to worry about the Gestapo busting us for going to war protests, buying bongs or reading about Islam. Technology is inevitable - it's how they use it that's controllable.

Well put.

I don't mind the data that companies collect. Like Alex said, the convenience is worth it. But if the government tried to use that information to control or oppress me, then I would have an issue with it. I just don’t see that happening right now.

The government can't take any freedoms we don't willingly give away.