Where you go. What you pass. Where you stop. What you listen to. What you watch. Your good habits. Your bad habits.
Companies in Europe and beyond are vying for control of the crown jewels of the connected car era: your vehicle’s data.
The contest is entering a pivotal phase as EU regulators look to hammer out the world’s first laws for the ballooning industry around web-enabled vehicles, pitting carmakers against a coalition of insurers, leasing companies and repair shops.
European Commission sources said the EU executive should launch an industry consultation on in-vehicle data this week which could lead to legislation later this year – the first of its kind globally.
Many companies view data as the gold of the new wired world, though for some it’s more akin to air or water.
“If you don’t have access to data in the future, eventually you’ll be squeezed out,” says Tim Albertsen, CEO of ALD, Societe Generale’s car leasing division, which commands millions of vehicles.
“You’ll not be efficient, you’ll not have the right services, you just can’t operate at the end of the day.”
Car manufacturers, guarding their gatekeeper role in accessing data from their vehicles, have resisted specific regulations for in-vehicle data, saying that protecting consumers is paramount.
“Europe’s auto industry is committed to giving access to the data generated by the vehicles it produces,” said a spokesperson for the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA). “However, uncontrolled access to in-vehicle data poses major safety, (cyber) security, data protection and privacy threats.”
Yet the companies lined up against them say limiting or charging what they deem unfair amounts for access to in-vehicle data could kill off competition for carmakers who already operate their own leasing firms, car subscription services and repair shops.
In some cases, they say carmakers are already restricting access to vehicle data and charging independent repair shops more for access.
“The manufacturers are in direct contact with the vehicle, so they get all the data,” says Sylvia Gotzen, CEO of the International Federation of Automotive Aftermarket Distributors, or FIGIEFA, which is part of a broader alliance of repair shops and parts makers that employs 3.5 million people in Europe.
“They get the full buffet and all we get is some crumbs.”
CARMAKERS: WE SHARE DATA
Vehicle manufacturers have big plans for data.
For example Stellantis, the world’s No. 4 carmaker, expects to generate 20 billion euros ($22.4 billion) annually by 2030 from software products and subscription services. Such offerings are also central to General Motors’ plan to double annual revenue to around $280 billion.
Volkswagen said data is becoming the “key source of value creation and innovation”, adding that customers have “full control” over it, citing vehicle security and customer sovereignty as its main focuses.
BMW rejected suggestions it was withholding data.
The German company said it can share nearly 100 data points with third parties if drivers requested it and could make more available if companies prove a real business need for them and a willingness to take responsibility for cybersecurity risks. Auto supplier groups like FIGIEFA say carmakers can access thousands of data points.
A BMW spokesperson said the carmaker would like all sides to sit down with a mediator such as the European Commission and hammer out a list of data points that is acceptable to everyone.
Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares told reporters on Friday that the carmaker aggregated data, which cost money, and so needed to be paid for it. He cited, as an example, data that Stellantis sells to cities to measure how often anti-lock braking systems are engaged at junctions and gauge which are the most dangerous.
“It is not only collecting the data, it is also about crunching the data in a way that is going to create value for somebody willing to pay for it,” Tavares said.
‘DATA IS ABSOLUTELY KEY’
Yet other companies in the auto ecosystem, such as ALD, say they want the European Union to ensure a level playing field
ALD, in the process of buying Dutch rival LeasePlan to give it a combined fleet of 3.5 million vehicles, has a car-sharing platform that needs to run diagnostics, read the odometer, check the fuel gauge and switch cars between users.
It also offers an insurance product that lowers your premium based on good driving behaviour – monitoring how you accelerate and brake.
“Access to data is absolutely key for us to provide the services we do today,” CEO Albertsen said.
To extract car data, ALD plugs a wireless “dongle” into the vehicle that transmits information to an in-house developed platform that it pays U.S. startup Vinli to operate. Carmakers running similar services get that data directly, putting ALD at a competitive disadvantage, Albertsen said.
Stellantis, for instance, offers car sharing and rentals through its Free2Move unit. Volkswagen could take over rental company Europcar to take advantage of car sharing and subscription services.
And most major carmakers have their own leasing units, like BMW’s Alphabet and Mercedes-Benz’s Athlon.
ALD’s Albertsen said major fleet customers were willing to pay for the data but that he wanted regulations to ensure ALD’s car-sharing unit paid the same as, for instance, Stellantis charges its own Free2Move division.
RISKS FOR REPAIR SHOPS
Insurers and car repair shops say it is paramount that the EU let drivers choose who accesses their vehicles’ data.
“There is a need to regulate this, as you cannot leave this in the hands of car manufacturers,” said Nicolas Jeanmart, industry group Insurance Europe’s head of personal and general insurance. “It should be for each driver to decide what they want to do with their data.”
FIGIEFA’s Gotzen said that would allow car owners to link their preferred repair shop to their car and have it run remote diagnostics if they had car trouble, instead of relying solely on the manufacturer’s recommendations.
“All of this is technically possible now, but we are hampered because car manufacturers prevent us from doing this,” she said.
She said FIGIEFA’s members are willing to adopt carmakers’ cybersecurity processes and requirements, but added cybersecurity could serve as an excuse for carmakers to restrict access.
Richard Knubben, deputy director general of Leaseurope, which represents Europe’s leasing and car rental firms, said the longer the EU took to legislate car data, the more independent repair shops are at risk of going out of business because they lack access to it.
“By the time we get legislation we may already be stuck with an imbalance that we can’t fix anymore,” Knubben said.
(Reporting by Nick Carey; Additional reporting by Victoria Waldersee in Berlin, Gilles Guillaume in Paris, Carolyn Cohn and Huw Jones in London; Editing by Pravin Char)
Although no one likes a know-it-all, they dominate the Internet.
The Internet began as a vast repository of information. It quickly became a breeding ground for self-proclaimed experts seeking what most people desire: recognition and money.
Today, anyone with an Internet connection and some typing skills can position themselves, regardless of their education or experience, as a subject matter expert (SME). From relationship advice, career coaching, and health and nutrition tips to citizen journalists practicing pseudo-journalism, the Internet is awash with individuals—Internet talking heads—sharing their “insights,” which are, in large part, essentially educated guesses without the education or experience.
The Internet has become a 24/7/365 sitcom where armchair experts think they’re the star.
Not long ago, years, sometimes decades, of dedicated work and acquiring education in one’s field was once required to be recognized as an expert. The knowledge and opinions of doctors, scientists, historians, et al. were respected due to their education and experience. Today, a social media account and a knack for hyperbole are all it takes to present oneself as an “expert” to achieve Internet fame that can be monetized.
On the Internet, nearly every piece of content is self-serving in some way.
The line between actual expertise and self-professed knowledge has become blurry as an out-of-focus selfie. Inadvertently, social media platforms have created an informal degree program where likes and shares are equivalent to degrees. After reading selective articles, they’ve found via and watching some TikTok videos, a person can post a video claiming they’re an herbal medicine expert. Their new “knowledge,” which their followers will absorb, claims that Panda dung tea—one of the most expensive teas in the world and isn’t what its name implies—cures everything from hypertension to existential crisis. Meanwhile, registered dietitians are shaking their heads, wondering how to compete against all the misinformation their clients are exposed to.
More disturbing are individuals obsessed with evangelizing their beliefs or conspiracy theories. These people write in-depth blog posts, such as Elvis Is Alive and the Moon Landings Were Staged, with links to obscure YouTube videos, websites, social media accounts, and blogs. Regardless of your beliefs, someone or a group on the Internet shares them, thus confirming your beliefs.
Misinformation is the Internet’s currency used to get likes, shares, and engagement; thus, it often spreads like a cosmic joke. Consider the prevalence of clickbait headlines:
You Won’t Believe What Taylor Swift Says About Climate Change!
This Bedtime Drink Melts Belly Fat While You Sleep!
In One Week, I Turned $10 Into $1 Million!
Titles that make outrageous claims are how the content creator gets reads and views, which generates revenue via affiliate marketing, product placement, and pay-per-click (PPC) ads. Clickbait headlines are how you end up watching a TikTok video by a purported nutrition expert adamantly asserting you can lose belly fat while you sleep by drinking, for 14 consecutive days, a concoction of raw eggs, cinnamon, and apple cider vinegar 15 minutes before going to bed.
Our constant search for answers that’ll explain our convoluted world and our desire for shortcuts to success is how Internet talking heads achieve influencer status. Because we tend to seek low-hanging fruits, we listen to those with little experience or knowledge of the topics they discuss yet are astute enough to know what most people want to hear.
There’s a trend, more disturbing than spreading misinformation, that needs to be called out: individuals who’ve never achieved significant wealth or traded stocks giving how-to-make-easy-money advice, the appeal of which is undeniable. Several people I know have lost substantial money by following the “advice” of Internet talking heads.
Anyone on social media claiming to have a foolproof money-making strategy is lying. They wouldn’t be peddling their money-making strategy if they could make easy money.
Successful people tend to be secretive.
Social media companies design their respective algorithms to serve their advertisers—their source of revenue—interest; hence, content from Internet talking heads appears most prominent in your feeds. When a video of a self-professed expert goes viral, likely because it pressed an emotional button, the more people see it, the more engagement it receives, such as likes, shares and comments, creating a cycle akin to a tornado.
Imagine scrolling through your TikTok feed and stumbling upon a “scientist” who claims they can predict the weather using only aluminum foil, copper wire, sea salt and baking soda. You chuckle, but you notice his video got over 7,000 likes, has been shared over 600 times and received over 400 comments. You think to yourself, “Maybe this guy is onto something.” What started as a quest to achieve Internet fame evolved into an Internet-wide belief that weather forecasting can be as easy as DIY crafts.
Since anyone can call themselves “an expert,” you must cultivate critical thinking skills to distinguish genuine expertise from self-professed experts’ self-promoting nonsense. While the absurdity of the Internet can be entertaining, misinformation has serious consequences. The next time you read a headline that sounds too good to be true, it’s probably an Internet talking head making an educated guess; without the education seeking Internet fame, they can monetize.
TORONTO – A new survey says a majority of software engineers and developers feel tight project deadlines can put safety at risk.
Seventy-five per cent of the 1,000 global workers who responded to the survey released Tuesday say pressure to deliver projects on time and on budget could be compromising critical aspects like safety.
The concern is even higher among engineers and developers in North America, with 77 per cent of those surveyed on the continent reporting the urgency of projects could be straining safety.
The study was conducted between July and September by research agency Coleman Parkes and commissioned by BlackBerry Ltd.’s QNX division, which builds connected-car technology.
The results reflect a timeless tug of war engineers and developers grapple with as they balance the need to meet project deadlines with regulations and safety checks that can slow down the process.
Finding that balance is an issue that developers of even the simplest appliances face because of advancements in technology, said John Wall, a senior vice-president at BlackBerry and head of QNX.
“The software is getting more complicated and there is more software whether it’s in a vehicle, robotics, a toaster, you name it… so being able to patch vulnerabilities, to prevent bad actors from doing malicious acts is becoming more and more important,” he said.
The medical, industrial and automotive industries have standardized safety measures and anything they produce undergoes rigorous testing, but that work doesn’t happen overnight. It has to be carried out from the start and then at every step of the development process.
“What makes safety and security difficult is it’s an ongoing thing,” Wall said. “It’s not something where you’ve done it, and you are finished.”
The Waterloo, Ont.-based business found 90 per cent of its survey respondents reported that organizations are prioritizing safety.
However, when asked about why safety may not be a priority for their organization, 46 per cent of those surveyed answered cost pressures and 35 per cent said a lack of resources.
That doesn’t surprise Wall. Delays have become rampant in the development of tech, and in some cases, stand to push back the launch of vehicle lines by two years, he said.
“We have to make sure that people don’t compromise on safety and security to be able to get products out quicker,” he said.
“What we don’t want to see is people cutting corners and creating unsafe situations.”
The survey also took a peek at security breaches, which have hit major companies like London Drugs, Indigo Books & Music, Giant Tiger and Ticketmaster in recent years.
About 40 per cent of the survey’s respondents said they have encountered a security breach in their employer’s operating system. Those breaches resulted in major impacts for 27 per cent of respondents, moderate impacts for 42 per cent and minor impacts for 27 per cent.
“There are vulnerabilities all the time and this is what makes the job very difficult because when you ship the software, presumably the software has no security vulnerabilities, but things get discovered after the fact,” Wall said.
Security issues, he added, have really come to the forefront of the problems developers face, so “really without security, you have no safety.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 8, 2024.
As online shoppers hunt for bargains offered by Amazon during its annual fall sale this week, cybersecurity researchers are warning Canadians to beware of an influx of scammers posing as the tech giant.
In the 30 days leading up to Amazon’s Prime Big Deal Days, taking place Tuesday and Wednesday, there were more than 1,000 newly registered Amazon-related web domains, according to Check Point Software Technologies, a company that offers cybersecurity solutions.
The company said it deemed 88 per cent of those domains malicious or suspicious, suggesting they could have been set up by scammers to prey on vulnerable consumers. One in every 54 newly created Amazon-related domain included the phrase “Amazon Prime.”
“They’re almost indiscernible from the real Amazon domain,” said Robert Falzon, head of engineering at Check Point in Canada.
“With all these domains registered that look so similar, it’s tricking a lot of people. And that’s the whole intent here.”
Falzon said Check Point Research sees an uptick in attempted scams around big online shopping days throughout the year, including Prime Days.
Scams often come in the form of phishing emails, which are deceptive messages that appear to be from a reputable source in attempt to steal sensitive information.
In this case, he said scammers posing as Amazon commonly offer “outrageous” deals that appear to be associated with Prime Days, in order to trick recipients into clicking on a malicious link.
The cybersecurity firm said it has identified and blocked 100 unique Amazon Prime-themed scam emails targeting organizations and consumers over the past two weeks.
Scammers also target Prime members with unsolicited calls, claiming urgent account issues and requesting payment information.
“It’s like Christmas for them,” said Falzon.
“People expect there to be significant savings on Prime Day, so they’re not shocked that they see something of significant value. Usually, the old adage applies: If it seems too good to be true, it probably is.”
Amazon’s website lists a number of red flags that it recommends customers watch for to identify a potential impersonation scam.
Those include false urgency, requests for personal information, or indications that the sender prefers to complete the purchase outside of the Amazon website or mobile app.
Scammers may also request that customers exclusively pay with gift cards, a claim code or PIN. Any notifications about an order or delivery for an unexpected item should also raise alarm bells, the company says.
“During busy shopping moments, we tend to see a rise in impersonation scams reported by customers,” said Amazon spokeswoman Octavia Roufogalis in a statement.
“We will continue to invest in protecting consumers and educating the public on scam avoidance. We encourage consumers to report suspected scams to us so that we can protect their accounts and refer bad actors to law enforcement to help keep consumers safe.”
Falzon added that these scams are more successful than people might think.
As of June 30, the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre said there had been $284 million lost to fraud so far this year, affecting 15,941 victims.
But Falzon said many incidents go unreported, as some Canadians who are targeted do not know how or where to flag a scam, or may choose not to out of embarrassment.
Check Point recommends Amazon customers take precautions while shopping on Prime Days, including by checking URLs carefully, creating strong passwords on their accounts, and avoiding personal information being shared such as their birthday or social security number.
The cybersecurity company said consumers should also look for “https” at the beginning of a website URL, which indicates a secure connection, and use credit cards rather than debit cards for online shopping, which offer better protection and less liability if stolen.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 8, 2024.
