Log in
Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free
Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
|
plant lover, cookie monster, shoe fiend
|
Epiphyte City
There are lots of reasons to want to shut off your car’s data collection. The Mozilla Foundation has called modern cars “surveillance machines on wheels” and ranked them worse than any other product category last year, with all 25 car brands they reviewed failing to offer adequate privacy protections.
With sensors, microphones, and cameras, cars collect way more data than needed to operate the vehicle. They also share and sell that information to third parties, something many Americans don’t realize they’re opting into when they buy these cars. Companies are quick to flaunt their privacy policies, but those amount to pages upon pages of legalese that leave even professionals stumped about what exactly car companies collect and where that information might go.
So what can they collect?
“Pretty much everything,” said Misha Rykov, a research associate at the Mozilla Foundation, who worked on the car-privacy report. “Sex-life data, biometric data, demographic, race, sexual orientation, gender — everything.”
“The impression that we got — is that they are trying to be a bit more like Big Tech.”
It doesn’t mean they necessarily do, but they’re leaving the car door open.
“The impression that we got — and this impression is supported by the official documents of the brands — is that they are trying to be a bit more like Big Tech,” Rykov said. “It looks like most of them are not entirely sure what's going on there.”
The data they may or may not collect can cause real trouble. It can notify your insurance company that you braked too hard or sped up too fast. Car companies can share your info with law enforcement without your knowledge. A domestic abuser could use it to track your whereabouts. It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to see this heading south.
I wanted to turn off data collection on my car because it’s creepy and I thought the option would be simple. It turns out that shutting off data collection and figuring out what’s been collected is much more difficult than it would seem. I know because it took me — a reasonably informed and technologically savvy person — a month to finally do so.
I’m in good company.
“It’s comically difficult,” Thorin Klosowski, a security and privacy activist at Electronic Frontier Foundation, who’s written about how to do just this, told me. “I do this for a living and I am not 100% positive I have gotten everything correct, which is ridiculous.”
In March, my husband and I bought a new Honda. When I turned on the car to leave the dealership, I got a notification telling me that data sharing was on. Right next to “on” was an “off” button. Simple enough! But when I hit “off” I got a message telling me it was “unable to change settings while network is invalid.” Right.
My children were screaming at me from the back seat, so I assumed this was a problem I could easily fix another time.
Time got away from me and I tried again a few days later at home. I thought maybe the initial trouble was that the cell service wasn’t good enough, so I tried to shut off the data collection when I had a better signal. Nope.
I tried looking it up online and didn’t find anything conclusive. What I did find was a recent New York Times piece by Kashmir Hill that said car companies were sharing driving data with third parties, which in turn were selling it to insurance companies to jack up people’s rates.
I called the dealer. He talked to some people at Honda and called me back. If I wanted to shut off the data sharing, I’d have to download Honda’s HondaLink app, which came with its own 14 pages of unreadable terms and conditions.
That was my only choice, he said. He also said I was the first person to ask him how to do so. I reluctantly downloaded the app, but couldn’t figure out how to shut it off from there. Finally, a day after downloading the app, I was able to shut off the data sharing in my car (confusingly, I had to do so in the car and not on the app, but only once I downloaded the app). It only took me a month.
Now, though, I will forever have a bright orange notification on my car screen telling me my data sharing is off. It’s clearly a dark pattern meant to nudge me into turning data collection back on.
Honda confirmed the notification won’t go away as long as I have data sharing off. Great!
It’s important to add you can’t select what is collected and what isn’t; it’s all or nothing. If I want a genuinely useful-sounding safety feature — the ability to get an ambulance in the event of a collision, for example — I have to give my car information for everything else.
Following this fiasco of turning off the data, I wanted to find out what Honda had collected from our car during the time it was running.
EFF’s handy guide sent me to Honda’s online privacy request page, where I learned we didn’t live in one of the five states where we could exercise our consumer rights to view or delete the data our car tracked.
I tried by phone instead, to see if Honda might excuse our crime of living in New York. There I waited an hour to have someone — maybe — understand what I was asking: to see what data my car had collected on me.
“We haven’t done this. We don’t know how to do this.”
I was put on several holds. At one point I was told, “We haven’t done this. We don’t know how to do this.”
Eventually they figured it out.
Two days later, we got an email: “Because you are not a current resident of a qualifying state, your request will not be processed.” I filed an appeal, this time saying I was a journalist. Two days later that was denied as well.
“American Honda strives to build and maintain a relationship of trust with our customers,” a Honda rep wrote me. “Toward that end, the company’s public websites prominently feature a link to our privacy practices, which include provisions allowing consumers to opt out of the collection of certain types of information.”
When I tried asking more direct questions about what was collected, the Honda representative kept pointing me back to the company’s unreadable privacy policy.
Concurrently I’d sent out requests to data broker LexisNexis to look at my and my husband’s files. Fortunately, it didn’t seem to have turned up anything about our driving — just former addresses, phone numbers, property records — though it’s unclear if that’s because our car only had data collection on for a month.
The Times’ Hill was less lucky (as a civilian, more lucky as a reporter). She found out that she and her husband’s Chevy Bolt had been sending detailed information about their driving habits — speeding, accelerating, stopping too fast — to data brokers and then on to insurance companies.
EFF’s Klosowski likens car’s unbridled data collection to smartphones around 2010 or internet of things devices (that were constantly being hacked into) soon after. A mix of state and federal legislation have helped but privacy problems persist.
“It used to be worse, which is a fun thing to think about,” he said.
“We have found ourselves in similar situations before and we did, slowly but surely, push on these companies to make improvements,” Klosowski said. “Car makers have less of an excuse given the fact that the history of smartphones and IoT products are right there to learn from.”
Last year, US Sen. Ed Markey sent a number of questions to car companies trying to suss out more clearly what they collect and where it goes. Recently their responses came out, but they’re not exactly transparent. Markey has since sent a letter to the FCC asking them to investigate automakers sending car location data to police. It’s part of increasing government attention on the car-data industry. But for now the freedom of the open road doesn’t feel really free.
Epiphyte City
Vaccines are extraordinary but not magic and they sometimes hurt people. Refusing to acknowledge this has made people more vulnerable to anti-vax propaganda
Epiphyte City
I read the agreement and Israel gets its hostages back and a permanent ceasefire, which means no more Hamas attacks. Israel is the aggressor here now and their goals are clearly genocidal.
Epiphyte City
The Canadian government plans to stop supplying provinces and territories with free COVID-19 rapid tests, which has an infection control epidemiologist worried about two-tiered health care, increased spread and increased health-care costs.
"The federal government continues to support Canada's rapid testing needs while the federal inventory remains," Health Canada spokesperson Nicholas Janveau told CBC News.
"That said, rapid test programming was and continues to be a provincial/territorial responsibility."
Ottawa currently has about 70 million of the tests, which people can use at home to screen for the virus. About 3.6 million of these have already expired and are ineligible for distribution.
The tests usually come in boxes of five, which would mean an inventory of just over 13 million test kits.
Given the current COVID-19 outlook, inventory levels, and indicated testing demands, the federal government does not anticipate the need for additional federal procurements at this time.- Nicholas Janveau, Health Canada spokesperson
Canada's estimated population, as of Jan. 1, is nearly 41 million, according to Statistics Canada.
While Health Canada has authorized extending the shelf life of some rapid tests, all of the tests in the federal inventory will expire by December, said Janveau.
"Given the current COVID-19 outlook, inventory levels, and indicated testing demands, the federal government does not anticipate the need for additional federal procurements at this time," he said in an emailed statement.
Public health should not be based on 'ability to pay'
Infection control epidemiologist Colin Furness, a self-described "early and strong proponent of rapid tests," who has spent years saying more resources are needed to fight the pandemic, said he's not surprised Ottawa wants to "get out of the testing game" and doesn't blame the federal government since health care is a provincial and territorial responsibility.
The problem, said Furness, is that if the jurisdictions don't step up to provide free, or at least subsidized tests, people will be forced to buy them if they want to know whether they're COVID-positive and should take measures to prevent transmission. And this creates a divide.
"Public health should not be based on your ability to pay," said Furness, an associate professor at the University of Toronto.
Some people can afford to buy rapid tests, available at some pharmacies, stores and online for about $7 plus tax per test, but "many can't."
"I think we should be very cognizant that rapid tests are part of what makes us healthy. It's part of health care. It's a diagnostic [tool] and it just doesn't make sense to commodify it," said Furness. "It's just going to create sickness and sickness is expensive for everybody."
N.B. to determine next steps for its program
At least one province is mulling the future of its COVID-19 rapid point-of-care testing program. Last week, New Brunswick said demand for the tests has declined steadily since last fall, and the province is "determining next steps."
New Brunswick has an adequate supply of the tests, which are all due to expire in September, said Department of Health spokesperson Sean Hatchard.
He did not say how many, but the federal government's website shows New Brunswick had an estimated inventory of 147,000 tests from Ottawa, as of last June — the smallest stockpile in the country. The department has previously said it has an additional reserve of tests, however, beyond what is reported on the federal website.
Hatchard did not say if the province plans to order any more.
Lack of public health policies, messaging
Furness said it's no surprise demand for rapid tests has dropped because public health officials across the country aren't telling people to test.
"They're going along with the narrative that really there isn't any more COVID, or very little, and this is not something you need to worry about," he said.
Similarly, there are no COVID policies, said Furness.
"I mean, what good is it to test positive if you still have to go to work because you need to feed your family and you don't have any paid sick days, right?
"What good is a rapid test when public health guidance says, 'Well, as long as you feel pretty good and you're not coughing too hard, you should go ahead and go to work?'"
Stay home when sick, regardless of testing
Testing is an important tool to limit the spread of COVID-19, along with personal protective measures and vaccination, the Health Canada spokesperson acknowledged.
"Rapid tests may be used to quickly identify if you have COVID-19, and isolate if the result is positive," said Janveau.
Still, the Public Health Agency of Canada recommends anyone who feels sick or has COVID-like symptoms stay home and limit their contact with others — regardless of whether they've tested positive or not, he said.
Federal strategic reserve no longer maintained
Ottawa ordered more than 811 million rapid tests throughout the pandemic, at a cost of about $5 billion. Of those, roughly 680 million went to provincial and territorial rapid testing programs.
A federal strategic reserve of rapid tests was maintained until Dec. 31, to ensure tests were readily available in Canada in case of future COVID-19 waves or an increase in demand, said Janveau.
While that reserve is no longer maintained, "provinces and territories have continued to receive rapid tests from the federal inventory upon request and while supplies last," he said.
Janveau did not say how many tests have expired to date, or at what cost.
Epiphyte City
In response to rising measles cases this year, some are claiming that measles is actually good for children—that fighting off the infection will make them stronger.
These rumors are catalyzed by the overall sentiment that children in our modern era are less healthy than they used to be. While there are some types of disease where this is true—metabolic syndrome is on the rise, for example—infectious disease is certainly not one of them.
Infections are not good for children—they have historically been the top killer of children—and our modern age is an anomaly, in a good way, when it comes to the ultimate marker of childhood health: not dying.
The mythical “good old days”—when children had flourishing immune systems from their natural lifestyles and didn’t need antibiotics or vaccines—simply did not exist. Back in those days, a lot of children died.
We have forgotten how many children used to die before their fifth birthday.
Today, the death of a child is considered unusual and especially tragic. For nearly all of history, this wasn’t the case. Death of children was extremely common. Until about the 1800s, roughly half of children died before reaching puberty.
In the early 1900s in the U.S., one in ten infants would not make it to their first birthday, and 30% of all deaths in the U.S. were children younger than 5 years old, compared to less than 1% today.
For most of history, infections were the top cause of death
Infectious diseases are not our friends. For the vast majority of human history, they were by far the leading cause of death:
In the medieval era, aside from deaths only categorized by age (infants and “aged”), the top categories of death were overwhelmingly infectious diseases, including tuberculosis, “fevers,” and leprosy.
In 17th century London, “consumption and cough” was the leading cause of death (consumption describes “wasting away” diseases and was later used to describe tuberculosis primarily), followed by “chrisomes and infants” (childhood deaths), “ague and fever” (fever/chills), and “plague.”
In 1900 in the U.S., infectious diseases were still the top killer overall (pneumonia, tuberculosis, and diarrhea/enteritis topped the list). 40% of those deaths were in children under 5.
At the end of the twentieth century, infectious diseases were still the most common cause of premature death worldwide.
Children today are undoubtedly healthier
Deaths from infectious diseases have plummeted with the discovery of bacteria and viruses, improved sanitation, pasteurization, the discovery of antibiotics, and the development of vaccines. Childhood mortality dropped astronomically, and life expectancy in grew by three decades in the twentieth century alone. The most dramatic increases are among children under 5 years old.
What about the hygiene hypothesis?
Towards the end of the last century, as the risk of death from infections decreased, the risk of other diseases increased, including allergies. In 1989, an epidemiologist hypothesized there may be a link. He published a study showing that children from smaller families had a higher incidence of “hay fever” (allergic disease). He postulated that children with fewer siblings may be at higher risk of allergic disease because they catch fewer childhood infections.
This became known as the “hygiene hypothesis,” which states that overly clean environments are problematic and that children must be exposed to germs to develop their immune systems.
This hypothesis was just that—a guess based on observational data. It is now 35 years old, and more data has come out that shows it wasn’t quite right.
Commensal microbes are helpful; disease-causing microbes are not
The hygiene hypothesis was right that exposure to germs matters, but it was wrong about which germs. The original paper hypothesized pathogenic (disease-causing) germs—viruses and bacteria that make kids sick—were important for immune development. While research is still ongoing, the evidence to date doesn’t support this.
Instead, the data suggest that the commensal “healthy” microbes—the good bacteria that make up our microbiomes—are beneficial.
Early childhood exposure to microbe-rich environments like farms or pets is associated with a reduced risk of allergic problems, likely due in part to an impact on the child’s microbiome
Pathogenic viruses like RSV are associated with increased risk of asthma
The hygiene hypothesis identified an important link between a child’s environment (like pets, farms, etc.), their exposure to germs, and the risk of allergic disease. But it got one part wrong—children don’t need infections to be healthy, they need exposure to “good germs” supporting a healthy microbiome.
What about building “immunity?”
Finally, some argue infections are beneficial because they allow children to build immunity against the infection. While having immunity is good, this does not mean infections are “healthy” or should be sought out — seeking immunity in this way is a risky bet. Some infections don’t provide long-term immunity (like RSV and COVID), other infections can wipe out immune memory from previous infections (like measles), and all infections carry a risk to the child. It is much better to get the immunity without getting the infection. That’s what vaccines do.
Bottom Line
Infectious diseases are not good for children. If you want to help your child’s immune system, get them vaccines and a puppy, not a virus.
Sincerely, Dr. P
This is the first post in a new section of YLE called Health (Mis)communication!
The flood of health rumors, confusion, and flat-out lies we now encounter daily is a giant problem—and it won’t be going away. Misinformation was named the top global concern in 2024. In the latest YLE survey, you expressed substantial interest in this topic. We are launching this new section focused on misinformation and more importantly, the antidote: health communication that actually works.
Dr. Kristen Panthagani, rockstar physician-scientist, scientific communicator, and creator of the medical blog You Can Know Things, will lead this section and bring the latest to the YLE community. You may recognize her name—we’ve written on viral health rumors together from rumors about sudden deaths after Covid-19 vaccines to the recent misguided public health advice for the Florida measles outbreak. I have learned so much from her, particularly on approaching rumors with empathy.
Stay tuned for more posts from Kristen!
Love, YLE
Kristen Panthagani, MD, PhD, is a resident physician and Yale Emergency Scholar, completing a combined Emergency Medicine residency and research fellowship focusing on health literacy and communication. In her free time, she is the creator of the medical blog You Can Know Things and author of YLE’s section on Health (Mis)communication. You can find her on Threads, Instagram, or subscribe to her website here. Views expressed belong to Dr. P, not her employer.
This newsletter is free, thanks to the generous support of fellow YLE community members. To support this effort, subscribe below:
Epiphyte City
Next Page of Stories