Mozilla’s latest edition of *Privacy Not Included reveals how 25 major car brands collect and share deeply personal data, including sexual activity, facial expressions, and genetic and health information.
4% of turnover is massive. Take BMW as an example, 4% of their revenue is 5.7Billion dollars, compared to their net profit of 18.6Billion. One third of their entire profit is absolutely enough to make them do everything they can to avoid it. Also, importantly, they cant get up to creative accounting to minimise revenue, misrepresenting that is fraud, unlike profit when companies get up to all sorts of tricks to artificiality lower it.
Honestly BMW comes out quite well in the scenario compared to many of their competitors. I looked up Citroen, Fiat, Ford & GM and they all were in the range of 60-90% of their profit getting wiped out by a GDPR 4% fine.
I was kinda hoping to find one over 100% profit, but I decided not to spend the rest of my evening looking up annual financials for car manufactures
I see no reason to cap fines to anything less than 100% of gross revenue. An egregious enough violation should kill the company (which has no inherent right to exist, BTW – being granted a corporate charter is a privilege), even if it’s the first one.
Its not even borderline ridiculous. The fines are so low they just incorporate them into operating costs. Jail the entire executive suit and board if a company does this shit, no bail.
How about national security? Russia or NK might struggle hacking the CIA but Nissan or Mercedes ain’t going to have the same security. Now you have hundreds of thousands of multifaceted information collection devices spread throughout the whole country in the hands of companies that would take the seat belts out if they weren’t legally required to put them in.
This is exactly why it’s forbidden to discuss classified information outside of a secure facility… even if you think you’re alone with another cleared person.
Obviously, humans are gonna do human things, but the government has policies in place to try and prevent this sort of leak from occurring.
This isn’t just about government secrets. This data could be used to blackmail someone based on where their car was and at what time or use other data acquired from the car against them.
Hmm, but I did not agree to those privacy policies nor was I provided with a copy.
This seems like potential grounds for a lawsuit. Anyone have an idea how to demonstrate harm?
I’m pretty sure the EU GDPR requires explicit & clear consent for data collection.
That’s up to a £17.5m fine or 4% of your annual turnover, whichever is higher
That’s nothing.
100% of last years profit. Make them almost die the first time and utterly ruin them if they do it a second.
Sick of these insignificant fines that do nothing to stop these companies.
4% of turnover is massive. Take BMW as an example, 4% of their revenue is 5.7Billion dollars, compared to their net profit of 18.6Billion. One third of their entire profit is absolutely enough to make them do everything they can to avoid it. Also, importantly, they cant get up to creative accounting to minimise revenue, misrepresenting that is fraud, unlike profit when companies get up to all sorts of tricks to artificiality lower it.
Honestly BMW comes out quite well in the scenario compared to many of their competitors. I looked up Citroen, Fiat, Ford & GM and they all were in the range of 60-90% of their profit getting wiped out by a GDPR 4% fine.
I was kinda hoping to find one over 100% profit, but I decided not to spend the rest of my evening looking up annual financials for car manufactures
I see no reason to cap fines to anything less than 100% of gross revenue. An egregious enough violation should kill the company (which has no inherent right to exist, BTW – being granted a corporate charter is a privilege), even if it’s the first one.
Its not even borderline ridiculous. The fines are so low they just incorporate them into operating costs. Jail the entire executive suit and board if a company does this shit, no bail.
I highlighted turnover deliberately. 4% of any company’s turnover is absolutely not something that can be rolled into BAU running costs.
Not least of all, if a company doesn’t fix the violations, they’ll come for it again with a fresh 4% fine.
Edit: typo
How about national security? Russia or NK might struggle hacking the CIA but Nissan or Mercedes ain’t going to have the same security. Now you have hundreds of thousands of multifaceted information collection devices spread throughout the whole country in the hands of companies that would take the seat belts out if they weren’t legally required to put them in.
This is exactly why it’s forbidden to discuss classified information outside of a secure facility… even if you think you’re alone with another cleared person.
Obviously, humans are gonna do human things, but the government has policies in place to try and prevent this sort of leak from occurring.
This isn’t just about government secrets. This data could be used to blackmail someone based on where their car was and at what time or use other data acquired from the car against them.