Will the immediate future of our cars come at a cost?

Progress always comes with a cost. The question, however, should never be how great that cost is, but whether or not it’s worth it.

As a sector that’s always been at the forefront of technological development, the automotive industry has been quick to adapt to the digital status quo, to the extent that many modern motors could be classified almost as giant computers on wheels.

However, with recent concerns that our technology might be used to spy on us, is a world where every journey we take is tracked and traced really one we want to be a part of?

The business world is already rife with it, but do we want to potentially surrender our personal privacy for the sake of convenience and progress? Or is there a lot of scaremongering around the subject that needs to be picked apart? Find out below.

Driverless Futures
One of the primary targets for concern is driverless cars, which have already made headlines across the world for all the wrong reasons, with a self-driving Uber in Arizona resulting in a fatal accident last year. The fact of the matter, however, is that driverless cars might actually be significantly safer than their human-operated counterparts. The real worry should come with the amount of data these cars could potentially be harvesting.

According to Des Butler of the Queensland University of Technology, “These vehicles will know where you like to frequent, which businesses, and may very well build a profile of you.” This profile would primarily be used to direct marketing towards users and improve overall performance, but the fact that the manufacturers would have access to such personal information might understandable put-off many from going driverless in the near future.

Smart Cars
It’s not only the driverless cars of the future that are potentially tracking our actions but the smart cars of today. Innovation is racing ahead and whilst the benefits are plentiful (greater efficiency, less pollution and more), there are definite drawbacks to having our every journey logged to the cloud. Not only that but with so many of our cars essentially run by computers now, there is always the potential of being hacked.

This would be even more terrifying in a driverless car, of course, where someone could potentially take remote control of your vehicle, but even in a modern ‘conventional’ car, a hacker could sneak malicious commands in through the car’s internal Wi-Fi, and compromise its operation. Of course, car hacking is still an incredibly complex procedure, and though you might be forgiven for thinking otherwise, electric cars are no easier to hack than their gasoline counterparts.

A Lot of Noise
Stephen Morrow, head of cybercrime at software security firm SQS, has been hired by numerous automobile manufacturers to help prevent vehicular cybercrime. He feels that there has been a lot of noise recently about the ‘hack ability’ of our cars, but that most of it is just needless panic. He does warn, however, that at the rate at which technology is progressing, we’ll soon reach a point “Where computer security intersects with public safety and human life.”

He points to a number of ‘stunt hacks’ carried out in recent years, which have proven the possibility of some truly devastating attacks. However, for now, the only thing you’ll really have to worry about it the idea of your car’s manufacturer knowing your daily school run.

Ultimately, there are currently around 78 million cars on the road with tracking technology and within a few years, it’s expected that 98% of new cars will include it too.

So, while we might not like it we might soon not have a choice. It might not be such a bad thing though, and whilst the idea of your car being used to turn you into a more gullible consumer might irk you initially, the upside is that we’re now living in a more convenient automotive world, where we are easier to find in case of an emergency, and everyone can drive safely.

For most of us, trading a little privacy for a lot of safety and convenience is a trade more than worth making and if you don’t agree, just remember that you’re probably already being tracked by your smartphone anyway!

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