The USA’s Federal Communications Commission (FCC) wants telcos and car manufacturers to prevent abusers misusing connected car technology to monitor the movements of their victims. Letters sent to the CEOs of Verizon, T-Mobile and AT&T all began as follows.
A little over a week ago, The New York Times published a chilling report that describes how connected cars are being weaponized in abusive relationships. As you know, modern cars offer a range of features that improve convenience for drivers, like assistance locating a car in a parking lot, turning a car on remotely, and connecting with first responders in an emergency without a phone. But as the report noted, these features rely on wireless connectivity and location data that in the wrong hands can be used to harm partners in abusive relationships in a number of ways.
For example, the report recounts in detail how a woman was tracked by a former partner through connected services associated with the car she was using. In another example, a man used his remote access to the car to harass his wife by activating the car’s lights and horns at night and running the car’s heat on hot days. The report finds that car makers have been reluctant or unwilling to assist victims of this abuse or restrict abusive partner access to the car’s connectivity and data—particularly when a victim co-owns the vehicle or is not named on its title.
There were no specific proposals in the letters, which instead focused on gathering information which could be used to inform future regulatory policy. Similar letters were also sent to the CEOs of Ford, General Motors, Tesla, and the American divisions of Honda, Hyundai, Mercedes-Benz, Nissan, Stellantis and Toyota. The questions put to telcos focused on:
- the connectivity services that have been sold to car manufacturers and whether these involve a phone number that is unique to the vehicle;
- whether connected car services are sold to consumers who are not customers of other mobile services;
- how the telco complies with the Safe Connections Act, a law that gives victims certain rights to retain their communications service without interference from abusers who were on the same joint or family plans; and
- the telco’s approach to retaining, sharing and selling geolocation data from connected cars.
The letter cites a Reuters article published in December about a woman who unsuccessfully sued Tesla because they maintained her husband’s remote access to her car, despite a restraining order she had against him. Tesla argued they could not curtail the man’s access because he jointly owned the car with his wife. Tesla also argued that the restraining order did not specify any action that Tesla needed to take, and that Tesla had no evidence that the car was being used to abuse the woman. The FCC’s letter treated this story as a proven example of harassment, whilst the judge in the case observed that Tesla was not able to determine whether the woman’s allegations were genuine, and that “a jilted partner might fabricate misuse charges to punish the other”.
The New York Times article cited at the beginning of the FCC’s letters concentrates on the story of a woman who alleged that her husband had monitored the movements of her car after she left him. The crucial point was that the manufacturer, Mercedes-Benz, was unwilling to curtail his remote access to the car because he was its legal owner, even though she had obtained sole use of the car through their divorce proceedings and had assumed responsibility for paying off the loan used to finance its purchase.
The FCC has waded into an emotive topic without having identified a clear way forward. Cases of harassment will evince strong feelings amongst the public. That does not mean private-sector businesses should create an alternative framework for deciding who has rights over a car that are equivalent to the rights normally defined by ownership. The common saying that ‘possession is nine-tenths of the law’ dates back to 1616 but we now live in a world where the concept of possession is greatly complicated by the potential for remote access. Cars are expensive and they are vital to many jobs and lifestyles; this conjunction of factors means it is especially likely that the legal purchaser of a car will be different to the person who most uses and relies upon the car.
Determining who has the right to use a car is not a decision society should blithely outsource to the private sector. However, only the most irrational optimist would expect the legal system to deliver an efficient, reliable and timely method of deciding how to reassign control and ownership when a couple splits. The FCC will likely use moral pressure to cajole telcos and car manufacturers into taking sensible steps to reduce the risk of harm in situations that are straightforward, such as the case of a spouse who has a restraining order against their former partner and who has been awarded the sole right to use a car. However, meddling through voluntary compromises will not deliver robust protection for victims of harassment if the owner of a car can show the law is on their side, and that they have been unlawfully denied access to their possession.
The combination of connected cars and abusive relationships raises genuine moral and legal issues that need to be resolved. The technology of connected cars poses new problems that societies have not previously dealt with. I just lack confidence that those moral and legal issues will receive the thorough and balanced examination they deserve.
The enquiries made to telcos and car manufacturers are summarized in this FCC press release.
