Not Orwellian at All

It appears that Ford Motors has been using its infotainment systems to store drivers text conversations and then gives them to the police and private companies without the knowledge of approval of the drivers.

This should be illegal.  It's not illegal nationally, but it is in Washington State:

Ford Motor Company uses its infotainment system to secretly download and store drivers’ private text conversations, and then turns them over to law enforcement and the private company Berla, a new class action lawsuit alleges.

The lawsuit was filed in Washington on Sept. 10 by lead plaintiffs Mark Jones and Michael McKee, who allege the company violated the Washington Privacy Act. The act, they say in the suit, forbids any entity in the state of Washington from intercepting or pre-recording any private communication without first obtaining consent of all the participants in the communication.

But Ford, they allege, has been doing so illegally through software and hardware made by Berla Corporation. Berla then supplies those conversations to law enforcement, military, civil and regulatory agencies, and select private industry organizations, the lawsuit alleges. Berla does not give private citizens any means to access or delete their own conversations.

“On information and belief, vehicle infotainment systems in Ford vehicles automatically download a copy of every text message stored on any phone connected to the system and store that copy in computer memory on the vehicle in such a manner that the vehicle owner cannot access it,” the lawsuit reads.

………

The same issue is true even with rental cars, the lawsuit says, with Ben LeMere, the CEO and founder of Berla, telling reporters the company has seen a number of messages stored in rental cars that were requesting drugs and sex. LeMere told the reporteres that as soon as a phone is plugged into a USB power port, the hardware and software will “start sucking all your data down into the car.”

First, use the car power jack adapter, not a USB port, second, here's hoping that both Ford and Berla end up paying through the nose for this.

That being said, there really needs to be a law making this sort of data acquisition, particularly when done for the benefit of elements of the US State Security Apparatus, illegal when conducted without a warrant issued on probable cause.

This would probably cripple a number of businesses, Berla and Palantir immediately come to mind, but that a feature, not a bug.